UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING | FALL 2017
KEEPING THE PEACE Making sure the nuclear option means energy
42 NORTH CAMPUS CHIC 34 WORLD-CHANGING CHOCOLATE 10 FREE TUITION VISUAL ADVENTURES
ROVE IN THE GROVE Computer science undergrads Rishi Bhuta and Adithya Ramanathan try out the Eda U. Gerstacker Grove’s new sand volleyball courts—with a robot. Built to collect soil samples on other planets, the rover competed in the annual NASA Robotic Mining Competition in May of 2017. The volleyball court’s Mars- like terrain was the perfect place for a test run.
PHOTO: Joseph Xu FALL 2017 VOLUME XXXIV, NUMBER 2
PUBLISHER Alec D. Gallimore Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering Richard F. and Eleanor A. Towner Professor Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Aerospace Engineering
SENIOR DIRECTOR Jennifer Judge Hensel
EDITOR Brad Whitehouse SENIOR CREATIVE DESIGN LEAD Mathias-Philippe Badin ASSISTANT EDITOR Gabe Cherry 34 | CAN CHOCOLATE BUILD A STRONGER HAITI? RANDOM ACCESS EDITOR Alum transforms her home country, one bean at a time Nicole Casal Moore FEATURE EDITOR Kate McAlpine
CONTENT CREATORS AND CONTRIBUTORS Stephen Alvey, Charles Amyx, George Blichar, Alexandra Cabadas, Ben Collins, Robert Coelius, Evan Dougherty, Esther Eppele, Cara Gonzalez, Sandra Hines, Emily Legleitner, Ben Logan, Tonya Marion, Randy Milgrom, Steve Nagle, EJ Olsen, Kelly O’Sullivan, Marcin Szczepanski, December Therrien, Josh Walker, Alison Wells, Amy Whitesall, Joseph Xu
ADVISORY COUNCIL 18 | OUT OF THE COLD WAR’S SHADOW 26 | LOVE IN ACTION John Balbach (BS ‘95), Tarolyn Buckles (BSE CEE The technology that’s keeping nuclear nations honest Standing up for clean water ‘93), Greg Ewing (BSE CEE ’13, MSE ‘15), Kimberly Johnson, Emma Kraimer, Mitch Rohde (BSE EE ‘94, MS ‘96, MS BME ‘97, PHD ‘00), Ken Snodgrass (BSE ME ‘69, MSE ‘72), Laura Wojcik (MSE ME ‘94, PhD ME ‘97), Brad Whitehouse, (ex officio)
MISSION STATEMENT The Michigan Engineer is a magazine for the University of Michigan College of Engineering community, and especially alumni. Its main mission is to engage the College’s alumni through content that is thought-provoking, by covering the intersection of engineering, the world and their alma mater. The Michigan Engineer magazine is published 56 | FRED PELHAM 08 | SUPERHYDROPHOBIA 59 | BIOMEDICAL ENGINEER2 twice a year by the University of Michigan College of Engineering and is the winner of Pride of CASE V Building (actual) bridges Pretty slick stuff Meet the FDA’s twin sister scientists awards.
The Michigan Engineer magazine offices are located at: Communications & Marketing 3214 SI North 1075 Beal Avenue CONTENTS Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2112 Phone: 734-647-7085 Email: [email protected] Website: engin.umich.edu 1 Visual Adventures 16 View from Ann Arbor 61 Brain Hacks Send address changes to the above address or Meet Rover Something’s missing on South U Under the hood of the Rubik’s cube email address 4 Focal Point 50 Victors for Engineering 62 In Memoriam Postage paid at Ann Arbor, MI Nurturing a nation of learners Who’s making it happen? They are THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 6 Comments, Tweets & Letters 54 Bicentennial 64 Parting Shot Michael J. Behm, Grand Blanc Mark J. Bernstein, Ann Arbor What do you really think? 200 years of beautiful tradition Bet you never did this in high school Shauna Ryder Diggs, Grosse Pointe 8 Random Access 58 Alumni Notes Denise Ilitch, Bingham Farms Andrea Fischer Newman, Ann Arbor New buildings, free tuition 12 months, 10 countries Andrew C. Richner, Grosse Pointe Park Ron Weiser, Ann Arbor 42 | BUILDING THE FUTURE, IN THE PAST Katherine E. White, Ann Arbor Mark S. Schlissel, ex officio A retro photo spread, you dig? Cover illustration: Stephen Alvey FOCAL POINT BE THE CHANGE
Top to bottom: 4 J. Alex Halderman, Jerome P. Lynch, WE John E. Foster, MUST Kathleen H. Sienko of life? ere are large groups of our citizens who have few But they are among the relatively few choosing to use their prospects toward ever changing their quality of life. ere expertise in this way. e question is, how can we make it DO are a lot of people su ering who feel they are being left one of our core missional directives as an institution that we behind, and with few allies. It would surprise me if many should be doing that? of those people view universities as allies. I think we should re research universities having a positive But Alec D. Gallimore, the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering, look in the mirror and try to decide whether or not we want Q: Good question. Do you have impact on society? How can they be more questions whether universities are fully embracing how the role of to do something about that. an answer? effective engines of social mobility? higher education has changed, particularly in the area of community (Laughs.) Well, honestly, I think it is starting to happen engagement and earning the trust of the public. at is, he doesn’t believe A Q: That sounds like a lofty goal. Are more and more here at Michigan – we are seeing more in- is was a question posed at a recent Bicentennial Presidential it’s merely a communication problem. Instead, he thinks we may not be there examples of that type of work dividuals choosing to take on this work. But to really push Colloquium in June, where the presidents of some of the world’s doing enough. leading universities gathered to explore the public perception of the Gallimore believes we should be shifting the conversation, focusing happening now at the College? this, we rst need to acknowledge that there is room for value of higher education, and how we can better communicate our not just on how we tell people what we’re doing, but also on how Absolutely! Alex Halderman in computer science and improvement. We need to be frank about the fact that we contributions to society. e discussion covered concerns about media to hold ourselves more accountable for actually e ecting change in engineering is a great example. He’s working tirelessly in could – and should – do a better job. And if we do believe portrayals emphasizing the rising costs of higher education, and the need society. We followed up with Gallimore after the event to hear more the area of democratizing the internet, and making people that it’s an important part of our mission, we need to think to communicate how the research enterprise produces knowledge that about what he’s thinking, and what opportunities he sees for the aware of the challenges and vulnerabilities in electronic about what that actually means. eventually leads to discoveries, cures and jobs. College along this dimension. voting. Jerome Lynch in civil and environmental engineer- Universities are really good about being strategic. We ing is collaborating with people in the School of Educa- employ massively complex strategies around research tion to engage Detroit grade-school students in deploying initiatives and education. Why can’t we be more strategic Q: Thanks for chatting with us. specialized in their trades and developing In fact, I recently had a company reach out experiments, giving them a chance to see rst-hand how about this area? For example, we’ve recently had a discussion To start, let’s talk about the global citizens and workers who are integral to about one of my patents for an application I research applies to the world. John Foster is a top-notch about all the things we’re doing in Detroit – there are so current landscape. What do the job force. at is, and always will continue never would have dreamed of. plasma physicist in the nuclear engineering and radiological many projects happening across the city in education and you think are the challenges to be, a very important role that we play. But there’s also another responsibility sciences department and a NASA rocket scientist. One of research! We have the established Michigan Engineering with public perception of Universities are also a place for artistic that we have – one that is relatively new – in his projects focuses on how to use plasma to clean water, Zone and recently-launched Qualcomm inkabit Lab, higher education? expression and creativity, and I view research the area of public engagement and outreach. especially in resource-challenged environments. both of which are providing STEM pipelines to thousands Well, I believe we haven’t done enough to as a technical form of that. At the College, at’s where I think we could be doing more. e Center for Socially Engaged Design, co-founded of students in southeast Michigan. But how can we be engage the public. Unfortunately, that’s led research is at the core of what we do, and by Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor Kathleen more strategic about that and ensure we’re using our to a certain perception of higher education, although the public certainly knows we do Q: Tell us a little more about Sienko, is a great example of what we’re talking about. collective expertise to work toward a greater goal? and a lot of it is focused on the a ordability research, I don’t think they fully understand that. What does that entail? ey’re trying to develop a rigorous methodology of how We could, but rst universities have to own the fact that and selectivity of admissions. I think many are the extent to which it has an impact on them. e notion of citizen engagement is something to prepare faculty members and students to engage the it’s a priority. At the College, our newly de ned mission is beginning to take a hard look at our institu- ere has been a shift in our economy, where that universities are grappling with more and community to nd appropriate solutions. is kind of to provide scienti c and technological leadership, improve tions and question, “Is it for me? Do I really more and more often research is no longer more. Quite honestly, it’s not something that work provides both a research and educational experience the quality of life and serve the common good. So I think belong there?” Making steps toward covering happening in industry. Companies are being many of us are speci cally trained in, and it’s – they’re learning engineering by applying it – but it also we have taken the rst step to owning it, and now it’s our the cost of college at Michigan, such as the Go more judicious in their e orts to focus on core not an area that a typical incoming engineer- impacts lives, because they’re engaging the community to charge to execute. Blue Guarantee that covers tuition for in-state competencies, and are using universities and ing faculty member would arrive here thinking make the decisions around which solutions are actually Honestly, I think our students are already there. In students who fall under an annual income of startup companies to augment their internal about. But helping the general population right for them. We need to have more and more of our many respects, they are ahead of us. But more and more of $65,000, is a step in the right direction. But capabilities. We’ve seen this play out heavily in view themselves as citizen learners, and increas- students and faculty members involved in that kind of our faculty and sta are stepping up and getting interested there is a lot more that needs to be done. the area of autonomous and connected vehicle ing their interest in nding out more about education and community service. in this notion of community engagement. So I think it’s an research, with major companies like Ford and the world, is critical to our mission to serve area where we’re going to see exciting things happen in the Q: So what do you believe is Toyota partnering with our researchers and the public good. How do we encourage young Q: It sounds like some great work is coming year. the role of higher education with startups. And the majority of startups people to stay in school and explain to them already happening here. So, what’s in today’s society? are also being generated out of universities what universities have to o er? How do we ex- the problem? Gallimore is also an Arthur F. urnau Professor and the at’s a great question, and one with a multi- with graduate students and faculty members pose high schoolers to research, or elementary e problem is that these are the outliers rather than the Richard F. and Eleanor A. Towner Professor of Engineering. faceted answer. e role that is most obvious turning the fruits of their work into products. school students to things like computer coding norm. ese researchers are not unique in having the skill sets Lynch is the Donald Malloure Department Chair. Sienko is and that we’ve had the longest is education – Intellectual property generated in universities and sustainable energy production? to apply the scienti c method to these societal problems. ey an Arthur F. urnau Professor and Miller Faculty Scholar the notion of educating people who are is also being purchased by startup companies. And how do we help improve the quality are certainly not the only ones who are or could be doing it. Associate Professor.
4 #UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER FALL 2017 g engin.umich.edu 5 COMMENTS, TWEETS & LETTERS COMMENTS, TWEETS & LETTERS
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING | SPRING 2017
Robotics facility Racing for Control Thumbs Up Camp Davis In response to our coverage of the On our coverage of Michigan Engineering My compliments on the Spring issue. It was On our Bicentennial story about the U-M field construction of the Ford Motor Company alumni’s role on the ORACLE TEAM USA informative, very interesting, and easy reading. station in Wyoming. Robotics Building that’s planned on North sailing team. I look forward to the next issue. OMG; no GPS, laser, or cell phones! Campus. Jeff Skorupski (BSAE ‘69) They obviously have several identical boats. TONY FADELL ON HOW TO DISRUPT.! Michael Sapienz Algorithms can be more fair than humans This makes me want to go back to school just They must have really good configuration 22 VASTRA CONSTRAE NUM AGUP 16 VASTRA CONSTRAE NUM 68 VASTRA CONSTRAE NUM IPSUM so I can play around. control. My company touched on America’s Response to H V Jagadish’s piece on Amazon’s Jacqueline Denoyer Cup sails for the outer covering of airships. Visit bicentennial.engin.umich.edu for more same-day delivery service area algorithm. The sails are exquisitely engineered composite Michigan Engineering history stories. Author H. V. Jagadish shows his anti-business material structures. They are precisely prejudice when he characterizes perfectly Who is the design architect for this way permanently shaped, not flat when flaccid. logical business decisions from Amazon and In response to Charles F. Morton cool building? David Finkleman Target as “unfair” and “discriminatory.” He Discrimination and unfairness come in many James A. Vargo implies that Amazon and Target are “biased” forms, and each of us draws a line separating if they do not locate their delivery service and/ The Ford Motor Company Robotics Building fair from unfair based on our own value system. or stores in poor and minority areas. This is just was designed by architectural firm Harley Ellis If a business were to put up a “Whites only” not so! Deveraux. The firm describes the building’s sign, most of us would find that wrong. But style as “Machine in the Garden.” –Editor Diversity He goes on to refute his own implications reasonable people can disagree about more As we end the first academic year where U-M when he says, “Stores attempt to have subtle forms of (potential) discrimination. locations that are convenient for a large launched their effort to improve Diversity, Equity, My point is not to argue about where we pool of potential customers with money to and Inclusion (DEI), the spring issue of the should draw a line as a society, or even to spend.” Isn’t this what businesses are in Michigan Engineer was disappointing. I have Revved up say that Amazon’s decision was unfair and business to do? had the pleasure of hearing Dean Gallimore On our Bicentennial story about the discriminatory. Rather, my point is to say that it speak on the college’s efforts to improve DEI Automotive Research Laboratory that He writes, “Designers likely don’t intend is appropriate to hold electronic businesses to a and Michigan Engineering is ahead of peer once stood on the Diag. to discriminate, and may not even realize a higher standard than traditional brick and mortar institutions in many respects. Not that you problem has crept in…Amazon told Bloomberg businesses because of dominance and rigidity, would be able to tell from the spring issue of Hate to say it, but I might be on the law it had no discriminatory intent, and there is and it is also possible for these businesses to Survey says the magazine. I see pictures of about 15 women students’ side on this one every reason to believe that claim.” Shouldn’t meet the higher standard because data analysis Responses to the survey included in the and over 100 men in this issue. The college’s Jeffrey Arthur Marsh we also believe them? is easier. Spring 2017 issue. numbers are better than that – surely you can More, “Yet there has been no popular outcry I take no position on what this standard should Spring 17 issue was fantastic! I read every do a better job of sharing stories in a more Brain Hacks alleging that Target unfairly discriminates be. The specific example of Amazon Prime article. It can’t get any better than that. representative manner. Responses to our trivia question about against poor people in its store location same-day service was in the news because Kathleen D. Klinich (PhD ME ’06) Michigan Engineers using this equipment in decisions.” This is because there is no real many politicians and many journalists thought the 1980s to build an instrument for studying discrimination! it was an issue. Amazon itself took immediate Where are the women? Compare photos of subatomic particles. steps to remedy what could have become a women to photos of men in the magazine. Even more, “Someone who lives in a ZIP code public relations disaster for them. I just ran I remember building an underground neutrino(?) without a Target store can still shop at Target -- with this example in the news, since many in detector was a big project for the physics Dept. though it may take longer to get there.” Anyone society would find Amazon’s actions troubling, @Doug Craig is welcome to shop at Target wherever a store but not Target’s. A different example may is located. Again, no real discrimination! better illustrate my point to a reader who is not It’s a mining machine, and high velocity particles I believe this author is looking to find prejudice troubled by Amazon’s original choice. are often recorded via deep sealed water tanks where none exists, and should apologize to H V Jagadish & detecting photon tracks from impacts. Engineer readers! Bernard A. Galler Collegiate Professor @Frederic Barthelemy Charles F. Morton (BSE IE ’57, MBA ’58, of Electrical Engineering and Computer DDS ’69) Science Have something to share? Email us at [email protected] FIRST BYTES RANDOM ACCESS
9 ILLUSTRATION: courtesy of Airbus ILLUSTRATION:
NEW CENTER TO STRETCH AIRPLANE WINGSPANS Big wingspans have a lot to o er in terms of eciency for long-haul ights, resulting in lower emissions and operating costs. But the bene ts will be countered by the additional weight if those wings are built to be as sti as conventional ones. So, what will it mean to y with exible wings? at’s the question to be answered by a new $8.25 million joint Airbus-Michigan center to be located at U-M. Together, Michigan aerospace engineering researchers and Airbus ight physicists will develop methods to study how the wings will move during turbulence and maneuvers - and also explore techniques to mitigate the bendiness. “We will be addressing very fundamental research questions while exploring this new SLICK AS A DUCK, uncharted territory in commercial transport aircraft con gurations,” said Carlos Cesnik, a professor of aerospace engineering at U-M and the director of the new center. TOUGH AS A RHINO Amazingly waterproof and ridiculously durable. at’s how Materials Science and Engineering Associate Professor Anish Tuteja describes his new “superhydrophobic” coating. Made of a mix of uorinated polyurethane elastomer and a specialized water-repelling molecule called “F-POSS,” the new coating is hundreds of times more durable than its predecessors. Even better, it’s self-healing; if F-POSS molecules are scraped from the surface, new ones migrate from below to replace them. Tuteja notes that the coating can bounce back even after being “abraded, scratched, burned, plasma-cleaned, attened, sonicated and chemically MICHIGAN AT RANDOM attacked.” It’s currently being commercialized and Xu Joseph PHOTO: could be available to consumers as soon as this year. THE NSF A Michigan Engineer now leads the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Engineering. Dawn Tilbury, professor of mechanical engineering and former associate ACCESS dean for research, assumed the role in June. e oce she heads awards about 32 percent of the federal funding for fundamental engineering research at academic institutions across the U.S. each year, and is charged with fostering innovations to bene t society. Tilbury retains her U-M appointment and plans to return to the
PHOTO: Kevin Golovin Kevin PHOTO: faculty when her term is completed within four years.
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Come as close as 3.9 million miles to the sun – more than seven times closer than any spacecraft before Plunge through the sun's atmosphere, called the corona Do 7 flybys in the 7-year mission, ending in 2025 Have a 4.5-inch-thick carbon composite shield to protect it from the sun's heat • • • • Justin Kasper, a climate and space sciences and engineering associate and space sciences and engineering a climate Kasper, Justin extreme explore that spacecraft for sensors designs who professor flying leading teams in is joining four other researchers environments, Solar late 2018. Kasper’s in Probe Solar the Parker instruments aboard will (SWEAP) Investigation Alphas and Protons Electrons Wind examine the most abundant particles and ions in the solar wind: electrons of helium and hydrogen. The craft will: “Go Blue Guarantee,” which will provide free tuition “Go Blue Guarantee,” for Michigan residents who apply and are admitted. covers the full cost of in-state tuition The guarantee study on the Ann Arbor for four years of undergraduate campus – a $60,000 value. THE “IT’S LIKE THE OPERA SINGER WHO HITS THE THE WHO HITS OPERA SINGER THE “IT’S LIKE IN OUR ONLY GLASS, WINE A BREAK TO NOTE ENTER AND WORDS SPELL OUT WE CAN CASE, YOU CAN THINK OF IT AS A COMMANDS. MUSICAL VIRUS.” Kevin Fu, associate professor of professor associate Fu, Kevin engineering, computer science and and Fu Times. York in the New that sound his colleagues showed could be used to hack into waves of array critical sensors in a broad smartphones.technologies including full article the going to by Read http://umicheng.in/kevinfu. PROBING THE SUN
But a new $7.75 million National Science Foundation project project Foundation Science a new $7.75 million National But 10 RANDOM ACCESS ACCESS RANDOM A tiny synthetic pore may help researchers study misshapen proteins may help researchers A tiny synthetic pore Called "5D protein and Parkinson’s. in Alzheimer’s to play a role believed that only one so small ngerprinting," the technique uses a nanopore is lled with saline e pore molecule at a time can t through. protein team, e research solution and charged with an electrical current. the measures Sept, David Professor Engineering including Biomedical molecule tumbles through as each protein tiny uctuations in that current could such measurements the future, In to get a snapshot of its makeup. of deadly diseases. insight into a variety valuable provide that brings together electrical engineers, biomedical engineers andthat brings together electrical engineers, biomedical is going to put a suite Yoon, Euisik professor led by neuroscientists, that could enable individual of tools into the hands of neuroscientists mapped and connected to behaviors. brains to be within rodent circuits Observing to better understanding of disease could lead neural circuits treatments. e ective as more in the brain as well Each of the 21 billion neurons in the human cerebral cortex believed is cerebral in the human Each of the 21 billion neurons tentacles that through 1000 other neurons, to be connected to roughly haven’t why we Explains centimeters or more. several for can stretch mapped any brains yet. NANOPORE COULD FIGHT ALZHEIMER’S THE BRAIN THE BRAIN TOWARD MAPPING TOWARD 12 RANDOM ACCESS with moderntools." engineeringproblems important to theforefront ofsolving that willpropel ourstudents science forchemicalengineers asking for–acurriculumindata students andtheiremployers are health. We willdevelop whatour world tobio-nanotechnologyfor solutions forthedeveloping from food,waterandenergy and studentsonresearch ranging withourfaculty that partners wide institutefordatasciences in thisspace,withacampus- us becauseMichigan isaleader for is isanaturalopportunity engineers whoknow datascience. desperate tohire chemical But companiesIspeaktoare forchemicalengineering. true their curriculum,andthisis incorporated datascienceinto disciplines haven't yet "Most scienceandengineering Anthony C. Lembke Department Chair Chair Anthony C.LembkeDepartment John W. CahnDistinguished University Professor ofChemical Engineering, Stuart W. Churchill Collegiate of Chemical Engineering, of ChemicalEngineering, Professor ofEngineering Where isyourfieldheadedinthenextfiveto10years,andhowdepartmentatforefront? They areleadersintheirfields.Nowtheyleaddepartments.We askedthefournewdepartmentchairswhatfutureholds. NEW CHAIRS AT THEHELM ENGINEERING CHEMICAL C. Glotzer Sharon CHARTING A COURSE CHARTING A
ready to meetthem." faculty, sta andstudentsare interesting challenges,andour ensure thatour eldwillface provably correct. esetrends andthat are trustworthy and theneedtobuildsystems analytics anddeeplearning, Law, thepromise ofdata including theendofMoore’s facing several in ectionpoints, At thesametime,our eldis solving theworld’s problems. of talentisfocusedonequitably the broadest possiblecollection inclusive environment toensure To doso,we mustprovide an how thistransformationunfolds. toshapeus withanopportunity in established elds–provide and awillingnesstoexperiment a deeplycollaborative nature, strengths –depthacross breadth, of ourlives. Michigan’s unique areatransforming nearlyevery disciplines, computerscienceis the youngest engineering "Despite beingoneof Science andEngineering Chair, Computer ENGINEERING SCIENCE & COMPUTER Noble Brian community resiliency." – thatare keytodelivering structures andsmart construction, mobility, watersheds,smart smart and intelligentsystems–smart we’re leadersinautonomous and pollution.For example, natural hazards, climatechange communities are resilient to edge analysestoensure our of high-techtoolsandcutting- boldly leadingthedevelopment environment. is Our department in betterharmonywiththenatural ensuring ourbuiltenvironment is infrastructure withanemphasison renewing andmaintainingour role broadening –we are now also profound shiftoccurringwithour infrastructure. Today, there isa were trainedtodesignandbuild on today. Generations ofengineers infrastructure systemswe depend expansion, buildingtheimpressive entered alongperiod of country "Coming outof World War II,the Department ChairofCivilDepartment and Environmental Engineering Donald Malloure ENGINEERING ENVIRONMENTAL CIVIL & P. Lynch Jerome
#UmichEngin advantages moving forward." will continuetobeour within thecollegeanduniversity, collaboration opportunities unique infrastructure and togetherwithour expertise, breadth ofourfacultyresearch combination ofthedepthand of marineplatforms. e electri cation, anddigitization such asautonomoussystems, domains intheoceanspace, areas whileexpandingtonew hydrodynamics andstructure to strengthen intraditional innovations, aswe continue discoveries andtechnological We are focusingonscienti c national andinternationalstages. research leadershiponboththe maintain oureducationaland far reaching. We are adaptingto the economyare growing and on society, theenvironment, and at adazzlingspeed. eirimpacts are broadening anddiversifying, " e marineengineering elds Architecture andMarine Engineering, g Michael G.Parsons Collegiate Department Chair ofNaval THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER ENGINEERING & MARINE ARCHITECTURE NAVAL Sun Jing Professor FALL 2017 Krandall (BFE' 16, art and design), and individual faculty sat down with anddesign),individual facultysatdownKrandall (BFE'16, art with in waysInever imagined. incredibly andwe supportive, were abletobringoutoneanother’s strengths experience inthemachineshop, mydesignteamthatsemesterwas contradict thenegative stereotype ofaMichigan Engineer. Despite my I realized recently thatit’s becauseof thosewhoseenergyandaction asks meandonethatI’ve dayforthepastthree years. askedmyselfevery unwilling toaskfororgive help, andtooproud toadmitmistakes. ofwomenandminorities, being close-minded,condescending,exclusionary engineering. To meatthattime,identifyingasaMichigan Engineer meant my mind.Unfortunately, it’s nottheonlynegative experienceIhadin I gotintorecounting mystory. progressively EECS buildingandcalledmydad,crying harder thefurther I hadnever feltsostupidinmywholelife.Isatonabenchoutside the become enlightenedeither. So Ileft. just standthere, lookatalltheknobsand levers, andhopetomagically know whattodo. Iapparently wasn’t allowed toaskforhelp. But Icouldn’t you’re machineforthe rsttime.Ididn’t standinginfront ofagiant,scary video aboutthree butit’s times.Imemorized everything, di erent when walked away. videos? the instructional You really shouldcomehere prepared.” enhe how He Ishouldstart. shothiswide eyes atmeand said:“Didn’t you watch latheandtoldmetheproject waseasy–don’tscary worry. Iaskedhim be inchargeandtoldhimwhyIwasthere. He walkedmeover toabig I trackeddown wholookedlikehemight oneoftheguysin annelshirts machine shopforthe rsttime.Iwassweating andmyhandswere shaky. and designresearch. ghting againsttheadministrationtoacceptmywork indisabilitydesign not understandinghow ourdecisionsasengineersa ectreal people,and male teammatesthatI’m justascapablethem,studentsandfaculty represented somanyofmynegative experiences:havingtoprove tomy titled a“Michigan Engineer.” Irejected thistitlebecauseitseemedlike the Michigan Daily. It hasbeeneditedforprintpublication. last semesterasastudent,shewrote thisopinionpiece,publishedin mechanical engineering,andisco-founderofAdapt Design. In her Laura Murphy graduated inthespringwithabachelor'sdegree in MICHIGAN ENGINEER REDEFINING at sameyear, IbeganadisabilitydesigncompanywithSidney So whydidIstayinthisprogram? It’s aquestionalmosteveryone andthewayIfeltthatdaywillforever beburnedinto is memory I thoughtitwasmyfault,thatwasn’t goodenoughto be anengineer. What thatmandidn’t know single wasIhadactuallywatched every I remember sovividlythedaysophomore year thatIwalkedintothe For thepastthree and ahalfyears, I’ve fought ercely againstbeing g engin.umich.edu Laura Murphy (left) works with Adapt Designco-founder Sidney Krandall. with eyes wide openintocreating theworldinwhich we wanttolive. as Michigan Engineers is theplatformfrom whichwe takeourbigjump to ensure thatourlegacyisonewe canbeproud of. Our shared background Engineer. eweight isonourshoulderstocreate ourown de nitionand daymyfellow every studentsde ne whatitmeanstobeaMichigan doesn’t ourown pathsand justtakeoneform. Eachoneofushascarved put therightwork in. re ective andconstantlyquestionwhetherornotI’m agoodperson. tocreate opportunity apositive impactintheworld.Icare aboutbeing people whohave disabilities.I’m singlepersonhasthe insistentthatevery de nition, IamaMichigan Engineer. What doesthatmean? degree from theUniversity ofMichigan CollegeofEngineering. So by as we navigateanintensecasestudyindisabilitydesign. capstone designproject teamhasbeenasource ofunendingcreative energy who care justasmuchIdoaboutdoing impactfulwork. And nally, my introduced metoanentire group ofengineers,architects anddesigners increatingmy partner anInterdisciplinary Design Conference, which a coordinator ofmechanicalengineeringcapstoneprojects, became engineering, becameoneofmyclosestmentorsinthisway. AmyHortop, myown path.Shannacarving Daly, anassistantprofessor ofmechanical people whoseocesIcouldstopby andposebigquestionstoabout us andgave feedbackoncardboard-and-duct-tape prototypes. Idiscovered PHOTO: Laura Murphy I thinknow tode nethattheMichigan isouropportunity Engineer Some days,whentheanswer isno,it’s uptome gure outwhyand I amadesigner. I’m passionateaboutdesigning withandlearningfrom A coupleofmonthsago,Irealized I’m graduatingthisspringwitha ADAPT ADEPTLY
RANDOM ACCESS 13 RANDOM ACCESS TECHSPEAK RANDOM ACCESS
“HAVING WORKED IN INDUSTRY, THE VAST DIFFERENCE 14 BETWEEN A PROOF-OF-CONCEPT PROTOTYPE AND A PRODUCT 15 WAS CLEAR TO ME. A TRUE SOLUTION TO A SOCIETAL NEED IS ONE THAT HAS BEEN PUT TO PRACTICE. WE FORGED A ELEGANT MECHANICS FOR UNIQUE PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN ENGINEERING AND MEDICINE TO TRANSLATE THESE INNOVATIONS TO A COMMERCIAL TECHNOLOGY THAT IS CLINICALLY RELEVANT, AND STREAMLINED SURGERY POTENTIALLY GAME-CHANGING.”
Shorya Awtar Fundamental engineering principles give this all-mechanical surgical Associate professor of mechanical engineering and co-inventor of FlexDex with Jim Geiger, the Daniel H. instrument the dexterity of a robot at a fraction of the cost. Teitelbaum M.D. Collegiate Professor at the U-M Medical School. Awtar is CTO of FlexDex Surgical and Geiger is CEO.
Virtual center of rotation: FlexDex’s most important innovation is spring, U-M startup FlexDex Surgical situates the instrument handle’s input joint at the same point in released a paradigm-shifting needle driver space as the user’s wrist. In other hand-held instruments, these for stitching inside the body in minimally joints are separated, leading to the disparate and counter-intuitive invasive surgical procedures. More intuitive Forearm cuff: Rather than simply motions of the user and the instrument. FlexDex inventors leveraged and ergonomic than any similar device on holding the instrument in hand, basic research in parallel kinematics (a field of mechanical design) the market, it operates like an extension of the surgeon mounts it to the forearm from Prof. Awtar’s lab to create a unique input joint comprising the surgeon’s own hand. At less than $1,000 via a unique three-axis gimbal cuff. two polypropylene flexure strips. This path-breaking design not apiece, the device could rival multi- only projects the virtual center of rotation at the user’s wrist but million-dollar robotic technologies to also mechanically separates the pitch and yaw rotations at the make minimally invasive surgeries instrument input so that these can be effectively transmitted to the much more widely available. instrument tip via simple cable routing. Each flexure strip is stiff in one rotation and compliant in the other. This allows, for example, Here’s the problem it solves the transmission of only the pitch component of the handle rotation Minimally invasive, or laparoscopic, to the pitch transmission pulley, filtering out the yaw component, surgery has several bene ts for the and vice versa. FlexDex’s handle almost floats, only connected to patient, such as reduced pain and the instrument frame via these two flexure strips that also help blood-loss and shorter hospital stays. attenuate hand tremors. However, in conventional hand-held instruments for laparoscopic procedures, the instrument tip that goes inside the patient’s body lacks wrist-like articulation and moves in the opposite direction as the Frame: To make the instrument shaft an surgeon’s hand. Using these counter-intuitive analog of the forearm, FlexDex designers instruments can be a physical and mental connected the shaft to the forearm cuff strain, and as a result not all surgeons are able via a bridge that goes over the hand and to perform laparoscopy. Today, surgeons have wrist. This decouples the surgeon’s forearm to choose between these awkward hand-held motion from wrist motion so that each can “straight sticks” or expensive robotic systems be separately transmitted to the instrument. that require considerable training and are The user’s forearm guides the tool shaft’s not readily accessible in all hospitals in the three degrees of freedom – translations U.S. and around the world. FlexDex disrupts Parallel kinematic virtual center mechanism: Parallel kinematic flexure along the x-, y-, and z-axes. And the user’s that binary. strips enable a unique "virtual center" mechanism. wrist guides the additional degrees of
INFOGRAPHIC: Stephen Alvey freedom that the tip requires – pitch and yaw rotations. Finally, a continuous roll rotation of the instrument shaft and tip is provided by a twirling action of the surgeon’s fingers and thumb. SKETCH: Shorya Awtar
#UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER FALL 2017 g engin.umich.edu VIEW FROM ANN ARBOR
MISSING U The now-closed Ulrich’s bookstore on South University. Ulrich’s is moving, along with the other businesses on the north side of South U between East U and Church Street. The buildings will be demolished and replaced with a 10-story high-rise that will house retail businesses on the first two floors and 40 student apartments above.
PHOTO: Joseph Xu OUT OF THE COLD WAR’S SHADOW The new technology of nuclear nonproliferation
STORY BY: Kate McAlpine PHOTOS BY: Joseph Xu challenge is that outlawing nuclear technology is no solution; nuclear power has far too much to o er in emissions-free electricity, especially “MY“MY“MY GOD,GOD,GOD, relevant in this moment when we are reckoning with the climate e ects of conventional fuels. e challenge instead is to prevent nuclear energy countries from WHATWHATWHAT HAVEHAVEHAVE becoming nuclear weapon states, along with e orts toward nuclear disarmament and the banning of nuclear tests. No country wants to WEWEWE DONE?”DONE?”DONE?” take it on faith that the others are following the rules, so engineers need to design monitoring solutions that all sides can trust. To bring treaty veri cation into the 21st century, the National Nuclear Security Administration o ered $25 million to a team of engineers, scientists and policy experts at 12 universities and nine government laboratories. eir Consortium for Veri cation Technology (CVT) is headed by Sara Pozzi, a professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at U-M. Pozzi has over 20 years of experience in nonproliferation, security and the monitoring of nuclear facilities. She spent several years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she was part of a team working with Russia on new methods for disarmament veri cation. “It’s really important to be able to verify a treaty to give con dence hese words echoed in the mind of Enola to the states that are part of the treaty, as well as to other states around Gay pilot Robert Lewis after watching a radioactive ball of fire the world, that the treaty can be implemented and enforced,” said Pozzi. swallow Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 in the first attack of the e work of the CVT touches nearly every aspect of nuclear Atomic Age.Tens of thousands of people were killed instantaneously. nonproliferation, including the development of methods to better Burns, radiation sickness and other injuries brought the death toll to ensure that nuclear energy countries aren’t diverting materials for around 200,000. It was the world’s first look at a terrifying weapon weapons, that any signi cant nuclear test around the world can be that is still both coveted and abhorred. detected, and that countries engaging in disarmament are meeting The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki set off a worldwide race their obligations. Sara Pozzi, U-M professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences and director of the Consortium for Verification Technology (CVT) next to a newly to produce nuclear bombs. The mushroom cloud of a successful test As methods for monitoring nuclear activity become ever more installed linear accelerator in the U-M Nuclear Engineering Laboratory. The accelerator will be used to test new types of radiation detectors. sent a message to other countries: you mess with us, we’ll annihilate precise, concerns about whether we can reliably catch treaty violations you. The international community tried to put on the brakes, but should fade, leaving the one big question: is the world ready to the past 70 years have seen more countries gradually arming them- dismantle these weapons? they are slow to register neutrons, which muddies the timing of their a sea of similar but unimportant events: the neutron among ten thousand selves. In the heat of the Cold War, nuclear warheads piled up to a neutron detections and makes them less precise at determining the gamma rays, or the nuclear test among thousands of earthquakes. global peak close to 60,000. CHANNELING ATOMIC POWER concentrations of ssile materials that power reactors and bombs. While the neutron data is prized, Pozzi’s group goes beyond merely e dawn of the atomic age, before the world had ever heard of a Also, the helium-3 supply has tightened signi cantly since the end of ltering out the gamma radiation – they’re trying to make it useful. By WE’REWE’RE STILLSTILL LEFTLEFT WITHWITH meltdown, was a time of great optimism with the promise of virtually the arms race: it is a byproduct of nuclear weapon production. As it looking at neutrons and gamma rays together, they can tell the di erence limitless energy. Nuclear nations like the U.S. wanted to share their becomes scarce, new detection materials are needed. between forms of plutonium, whether it’s a compound destined for fuel ABOUTABOUT 15,00015,000 NUCLEARNUCLEAR expertise, on one condition: countries receiving nuclear power “In the CVT, we’re pioneering the use of these fast neutron detectors rods or a metal that could be shaped into a weapon. technology agreed never to obtain nuclear weapons. based on scintillators,” said Pozzi. “It’s really changing the way we’re Going beyond basic detection, convenient radiation imaging WEAPONSWEAPONS TODAY.TODAY. ITIT Nuclear power has spread across the globe under the watchful eye of doing detection for things like nuclear fuel.” could change the game in nuclear inspections. An IAEA agent could the International Atomic Energy Agency, founded in 1957. e IAEA’s use a camera to determine whether there is radiation coming from DOESN’TDOESN’T MAKEMAKE SENSESENSE role was formalized in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970. BETTER DETECTORS unexpected locations – for instance, a corner of a room that might have “ ere are maybe 140 countries that have nuclear materials, and the Scintillators react to radiation in forms like gamma rays and neutrons, been overlooked with a simple detector because all of the radiation was BYBY ANYANY MEANINGFULMEANINGFUL IAEA is responsible for verifying that the countries have the material producing light where the radiation passes through. eir big advantage, assumed to come from the fuel assembly o ered for inspection. Now, they claim to have – it hasn’t passed to nuclear weapon or secret in addition to cost, is that they can sense neutrons quickly, picking apart researchers are developing new handheld detectors that not only identify STANDARD.STANDARD. programs,” said Zhong He, a professor of nuclear engineering and eeting chain-reaction ssion events in uranium and plutonium materials. radiation but pinpoint its source. radiological sciences at U-M. He leads the CVT research group tasked e problem is that they light up not only when neutrons come Zhong He is best known for his gamma cameras. ose that his with solutions for inspections and non-covert monitoring. through, but also in response to gamma rays, a form of electromagnetic company, H3D, makes are prized by nuclear safety professionals for their “Right now, the United States has 1,700 nuclear weapons ready to ere are many points along the fuel cycle where nuclear material radiation that is a step up from x-rays in energy. At rst blush, the many ability to identify tiny amounts of radioactive material – “radioactive be delivered and another 2,700 in storage. Some are literally thousands could be diverted or facilities misused (see infographic “How Peaceful gammas are indistinguishable from the much rarer neutrons, and this has dust,” as one user said. e IAEA has already bought two. He’s group of times more powerful than what was delivered in Hiroshima and Atoms Go Bad”). Likewise, the IAEA has many tools for identifying always excluded plastic scintillators from the neutron detection game. But is taking these cameras further by beginning to harness the neutron- Nagasaki,” said Paul Richards, a special research scientist at Columbia bad behavior. Still, the agency’s funding doesn’t extend to research and Pozzi and her colleagues are trying to turn this deal-breaking disadvantage detecting ability of the crystal at the heart of the camera. University. “And pointing at us from the Russian Federation, there are development, so it is left to the universities and national labs to push into an advantage. Likewise, Pozzi’s combination radiation detectors are moving into about 1,800 large nuclear weapons deployed now, ready to be delivered, detection ahead. Her group has developed algorithms that can tell the di erence imaging. CVT assistant director and U-M associate research scientist and also nearly 3,000 on reserve.” e IAEA depends heavily on the use of helium-3 detectors to between neutrons and gammas, and these are being further re ned with Shaun Clarke described their imager prototype: an array of centimeter- Still, the e ort to prevent another Hiroshima – or worse – has been spot the neutrons that are critical to recognizing radioactive uranium help from Alfred Hero, a professor of computer science and engineering scale scintillating crystal pillars inside a handheld box. While He’s cameras an unparalleled unifying force on the international stage. e great and plutonium. ese detectors have two big downsides. For one, at U-M. His algorithms are good at picking out rare, important events in superimpose the radiation image over the image of the room on
20 #UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER FALL 2017 g engin.umich.edu 21 PARTICIPATING IN THE CVT
Universities University of Michigan HOW PEACEFUL ATOMS GO BAD Massachusetts Institute of Technology Princeton University Columbia University North Carolina State University University of Hawaii URANIUM MINE Duke University 1. Uranium ore only contains 0.7 percent U-235 – it’s mostly U-238. University of Wisconsin WASTE STORAGE SITES University of Florida 6. Nuclear waste must be secured against theft. Oregon State University Yale University Diverting mined ore for weapons means starting University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from scratch with secret processing facilities. National Labs Brookhaven National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory While waste is difficult to work with for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Sandia National Laboratory extracting weapons-grade metals, it URANIUM ENRICHMENT poses a risk for radiation-contaminated 2. Idaho National Laboratory “dirty” bombs. These plants concentrate the U-235, producing Oak Ridge National Laboratory about 5 percent enrichment for fuel purposes. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
PhD candidate Michael Hamel tests a Microsoft Hololens headset, This equipment is capable of being reconfigured to using augmented reality to detect radiation sources in the Nuclear achieve the 90+ percent enrichment needed for a Radiation Laboratory. To see a video of hololens technology in action, uranium bomb. visit umicheng.in/CVT_Headset 5. PROCESSING FACILITY Reprocessing can get another 25 or 30 percent more energy out of the fuel. FUEL FABRICATION a tablet computer screen, Pozzi’s group is experimenting with a Microsoft ese routes can then be con rmed by satellite images, the non-design Typical reprocessing facilities isolate the 3. The fuel is pressed into pellets and loaded onto rods. Hololens virtual reality headset. data. But it’s not just about con rming that shipments occurred as reported; plutonium for mixing into a different “We envision a world in which a nuclear inspector wearing a Hololens by looking at slight variations in the shipping network, the researchers believe kind of fuel. could walk inside a room with a detector in his or her hand and be able to that they could turn up the times and places where undercover shipments With the right fuel rods, Diverting fuel-grade uranium would these facilities can see the radiation source,” said Pozzi. may have occurred. require secret processing facilities. isolate Pu-239 for making Another potential strategy is to observe power consumption at uranium weapons. THE POWER OF DATA enrichment plants. If the centrifuges are enriching uranium to higher, weap- While inspections are indispensible, they aren’t a complete monitoring solution. ons-grade concentrations of U-235, it will be visible in the form of greater e odds of catching a facility in the middle of an illicit transfer of materials are electricity use. Hero pointed out that the reported electricity bills could low. at’s why the IAEA’s toolkit also includes long-term monitoring technol- be compared to indirect measurements of the power line running into the ogy such as video and radiation surveillance and satellite imaging. facility – monitoring the magnetic eld around it, the noise it makes or even REACTOR In the CVT, Hero and other researchers are looking at ways to use ad- the number of birds perched on the line. When more power is coming in, the 4. Reactors “burn” the U-235, producing energy, but the neutrons vanced data science to take surveillance to the next level, merging data from magnetic eld and noise rise while the heat deters the birds. flying around in the reactor also hit the U-238. In normal run-times, di erent sources to identify anomalies that might indicate foul play. Hero “We want to go beyond formal intelligence-gathering with cheap, per- the Pu-239 produced this way is heavily contaminated with leads the data analysis arm of the CVT, which is investigating how to leverage vasive technologies that can ensure – through the use of machine learning, more-radioactive plutonium isotopes, making it too hot for the data that is available. image analysis and big data processing – a more e ective way of detecting weapons-making. “ ere is this notion of design data and non-design data,” said Hero. diversions and anomalies,” said Hero. If a reactor runs fresh fuel rods for just a few weeks, “Design data are, for example, speci cally targeted campaigns to measure ra- Among those anomalies are secret nuclear weapon tests. reasonably pure Pu-239 can be harvested from the diation levels under a treaty agreement. Non-design data, on the other hand, rods for bomb-making. are just lying around and not collected for a nonproliferation purpose.” VERIFYING TEST BAN TREATIES One CVT project, led by Lawrence Carin, a professor of electrical In the mid-1990s, many people believed the world was ready for a total ban engineering at Duke University, is trying to take advantage of non-design on nuclear tests, so in 1996, the United Nations adopted the Comprehen-
ISOTOPE BASICS INFOGRAPHIC: Stephen Alvey data with a method for spotting secret shipments out of known facilities. sive Test Ban Treaty, expecting it to sail through. It didn’t. Several nations One element can contain different numbers of neutrons; these versions are known as isotopes. Because the IAEA obtains reports of all nuclear material comings and didn’t sign, and several more – including the U.S. – signed but didn’t ratify. Pu-239: Plutonium 239 is an isotope of plutonium that can be used for making nuclear weapons. goings, it essentially has a transport network as design data. While some Still, the 183 signatories (of the 193 states in the UN) have honored it U-238: Uranium 238 is the most common isotope of natural uranium. It is not fissile. shipments are tracked with GPS, the routes and stopover times for others and contributed to the funding of the International Monitoring System can be inferred – for instance, by comparing the time that a truck left one (IMS), a global network of 321 monitoring stations and 16 labs that can U-235: With three fewer neutrons than U-238, this isotope of uranium is fissile. It can be used as reactor fuel or in nuclear weapons. facility and arrived at another. detect major nuclear tests anywhere in the world. e IMS was just getting
22 #UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER FALL 2017 g engin.umich.edu 23 and analyzed. By understanding and reducing the uncertainties in the Yale University to demonstrate that it was possible to con rm that two models, his team improves the odds that investigators can identify the type warheads are identical without ever recording design details. and location of a suspected nuclear test. Using non-electronic detectors that respond to neutrons by forming While the IMS was designed to detect nuclear tests, Garcés pointed out bubbles in a gel, Glaser’s team showed that they could con rm that these are usually advertised as a form of saber rattling. e most important two sets of metal blocks, which represented warheads, were identical in bene t of better monitoring may be in de-escalating tensions, he said. chemical composition, size and arrangement. ey did this by preload- “For example, meteors could be incorrectly identi ed as being an ing the detectors with the complement of the signature expected by attack. is has happened to us various times – when something just measuring the blocks, like a photo negative. en, when two identical came out of the sky and blew up. And the rst few hours to days can sets of blocks were scanned with the neutron beam, two detector sets be tense,” he said. “If you can identify the signature quickly, you can showed the same number of bubbles. de-escalate from a military to a natural hazard response. And that is In an inspection, Glaser explained that a warhead could be removed really key to stability in the world.” directly from a missile and taken to a set of warheads with the same design that had been earmarked for dismantlement. TOWARD DISARMAMENT e preloading would be done by the country under investigation, When the non-nuclear-armed countries agreed never to pursue nuclear and that complement would be wiped out during the scan. e weapons in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the nuclear-armed inspectors would never see it, and it would never be recorded countries promised to disarm. is commitment was largely ignored electronically. e investigator would choose which set of detectors during the Cold War, and even today, progress is slow. is is partly would be used with which warhead. because warheads are hard to monitor, explained Alexander Glaser, an If the country was trying to fake out its inspectors, it might try to associate professor of public and international a airs, and mechanical sneak in some warheads without uranium or plutonium, making it look
Sara Pozzi adjusts a scintillator-based detector, which detects the neutrons and aerospace engineering, at Princeton University. Delivery vehicles, as though it was destroying more warheads than it really was. But these and gamma rays given off by radioactive uranium and plutonium. such as intercontinental ballistic missiles, are held in rather obvious silos, fakes could be spotted with a mismatch in the detector signals, and the but warheads can be stored in innocuous-looking warehouses and move di erences would give away details of the warhead’s design. around during maintenance activities. e weakness of the strategy is that it relies on a warhead that the e U.S. and U.S.S.R. worked around this problem with their early investigators believe is real. Still, Glaser points out that it would be risky arms reduction e orts; in 1972, they began limiting not the warheads and elaborate to present inspectors with an entire arsenal of missiles themselves but the delivery vehicles. But the U.S. -Russia Strategic Arms tted with decoys and a set of identical fake warheads to “disarm.” Reduction Treaty (START) of 1994 and its successor New START Zero knowledge methods could go a long way toward enabling more WEWE ENVISIONENVISION AA WORLDWORLD ININ WHICHWHICH AA NUCLEARNUCLEAR limited actual warheads for the rst time, putting a cap on how many aggressive disarmament targets. warheads could be mounted on those missiles or loaded into bombers. “Better veri cation technologies are necessary to signi cantly INSPECTORINSPECTOR WEARINGWEARING AA HOLOLENSHOLOLENS COULDCOULD e deployed warhead limit to be met by February 2018 is 1,550. reduce the number of nuclear weapons,” said Clarke. “If the U.S. To make real progress with disarmament, the treaty verification and Russia each have ve nuclear weapons, the ability to verify one is WALKWALK INTOINTO AA ROOMROOM ANDAND BEBE ABLEABLE TOTO SEESEE THETHE community will need new techniques for monitoring the number much more important.” of warheads each country has and verifying that warheads earmarked RADIATIONRADIATION SOURCE.SOURCE. for dismantlement are rendered unusable. The CVT is looking for NUCLEAR-ARMS-FREE WORLD? these new methods. Five nuclear weapons each seems fanciful from where we are now. started when India and Pakistan conducted their tests in 1998, but by the time In a thoroughly monitored region like North Korea, Richards said Nuclear warheads are especially dicult to count because countries “We’re still left with about 15,000 nuclear weapons today,” said North Korea began testing nuclear explosives in 2006, it was ready. explosions of just a few tons – well below military signi cance – can be de- want to protect classi ed information. “If this were simply a measure- Glaser. “It doesn’t make sense by any meaningful standard.” e international monitoring stations come in four avors: seismic, tected. For other regions, he is working closely with Hero to apply advanced ment problem, it would already be solved,” said Clarke. Some CVT researchers can envision a world with just a measuring seismic waves through the earth’s crust; hydroacoustic, statistical analysis to the problem, reducing the threshold to detect a nuclear He added that knowledge of the quantity of nuclear material plus handful of nuclear weapons – or even zero. In such a world, treaty measuring sound waves in the ocean; infrasound, picking up inaudibly explosion. is will give treaty signatories more con dence that violators can its shape is enough to give away the explosive power of the nuclear weap- verification is critical. Violators must be detected early and stopped low sound waves in the atmosphere; and radionuclide, identifying be caught and stopped. on. Even the mass of the nuclear material alone is more than nations before weapons are produced. radioactive particles found in the atmosphere. In addition to improving the analysis of seismic data, CVT researchers want to reveal. Judging by past progress, Glaser anticipates that it will take a long e IMS was built up very quickly once the U.N. adopted the treaty, are exploring improvements in other means of detection. For example, Yet all an inspector really wants is a yes or no: this device contains a time just to get nuclear weapon numbers into the low hundreds, but leaving little time to hone the monitoring techniques. Now, members of the Milton Garcés, director of the Infrasound Laboratory at the University of plausible amount of weapons-grade nuclear material, or it does not. So, once we’re there, the international community may have changed so CVT are trying to improve all aspects of the measurements. Hawaii, is exploring how armies of iPhones can augment the existing arrays many researchers are working to produce detectors that can give that much that zero doesn’t seem like such a dicult leap. Paul Richards of Columbia University, an expert in seismology, studies the of infrasound sensors. simple answer without recording any classi ed information in a form Pozzi is more cautious about the security of an arms-free utopia. blasts from nuclear tests and earthquakes, developing techniques to tell them His group developed an app called RedVox that harvests the that might be stored or intercepted. If these techniques existed, they “How can we verify zero weapons, especially in large states such as U.S. apart even for relatively small nuclear explosions. infrasound portion of sound registered by the iPhone’s built-in could make a new kind of disarmament treaty feasible. or Russia?” she asked. “Many would argue that keeping nuclear weapons “ ere are several di erent types of seismic wave, and whether you have microphone and sends it o to his servers, where it can be analyzed. Some researchers, including David Wehe, a professor of nuclear to numbers in the hundreds for the U.S. and Russia provides a more an earthquake source or an explosion source, that generates a di erent mix of And because infrasound waves are so much longer than those produced engineering at U-M and science advisor to the CVT, are developing stable solution.” seismic waves,” said Richards. by human voices, they can be gathered with a lower sampling rate, technologies that blur the detailed signals from the detectors very early In the meantime, nuclear-weapon-free countries are tired of waiting Right now, the IMS can pick up an underground blast anywhere in the requiring less data and preventing the capture of conversations. on, before they can be diverted and recorded. around for weapons countries to disarm. ey are taking action with a world that exceeds 1,000 tons TNT equivalent. For context, the Tomahawk e smoking gun, so to speak, of a weapons test is the presence of Glaser leads one of the projects that have taken this a step further, new treaty, adopted by 122 U.N. countries in July 2017, to ban nuclear missiles launched at Syria in April of 2017 bore 500-ton chemical warheads. radioactive gasses in the atmosphere. John Lee, a professor of nuclear trying to stop classi ed information from even making it into the arms. It opened for signatures in September. Once a nuclear weapon is no more powerful than a conventional bomb or engineering and radiological sciences at U-M, develops tools to predict detectors. He calls it “zero knowledge” veri cation, inspired by It may not be long until, at least on the international stage, nuclear warhead, it’s no longer considered a special threat from a military perspective. where the wind will take these invisible fumes so that they can be captured cryptography. rough the CVT, his group worked with a team at weapons are no longer a mark of power, but the mark of a pariah.
24 #UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER FALL 2017 g engin.umich.edu 25 Access to clean water and sanitation is a human right. How a U-M professor is working with communities from Flint to Addis Ababa to stand up for it.
STORY BY: Nicole Casal Moore PHOTOS BY: Marcin Szczepanski Construction crews replace lead service lines that connect Flint, Michigan homes to the water main on a street not far from the Broome Center, where Nancy Love and her colleagues work in Flint. “We should not assume
ancy Love is driving north from her Ann Arbor oce engineer and a well-known water system scholar whose work on detecting ey teach students how to do the same. And that’s where they see their that what was true about to Flint, Michigan, the notorious city where tens of and remediating biological and chemical pollutants has improved water role ending. It makes sense. It’s the cycle of academia. thousands were exposed to lead-laced drinking water treatment processes in the U.S. and abroad. And then there are faculty members like Love. She takes the bacteria in pipes 20 years beginning in 2014. While she navigates U.S. 23, she talks about how she got to this pivotal engineering profession’s creed to heart, acting as a link between science and She’s on her way to meet collaborators and the team of Flint place, and the communities along the way that have opened doors, guided society. Love is by no means the only professor at Michigan Engineering ago is true today.” residents collecting water samples around the city. Together, they’re her through them and continue to work side-by-side with her. Her journey who operates like this. And it’s true that not all elds or problems are investigating whether an outbreak of a severe type of pneumonia passed through a neurosurgery ward, international orphanages and a campus suited to this approach. But many consider her a leader. called Legionnaire’s disease can also be linked to the drinking water. shooting – all of which inform the dicult and crucial work she and her “In my mind, the ideal engineer is a bridge,” said Glen Daigger, a for solutions. Poor water quality is causing health problems, especially It’s an hour-long drive that she makes about once a week, and it colleagues are doing today on two continents. professor of engineering practice in the U-M Department of Civil and for children who are particularly vunerable to dying from preventable exempli es the “outside-the-ivory-tower” approach that de nes her Environmental Engineering and a member of the National Academy of waterborne diseases. Love has seen some of the repercussions rst- long career. A bridge over troubled water Engineering. “Science tells you what is possible. We can’t do anything the hand. In 2011, she and her husband, Brian Love, who is a professor As the highways intersect in the city proper, she passes the urban gospel e planet’s urban and natural water systems – and in turn, the humans natural world won’t allow us to do. Engineering provides the mechanisms of materials science and engineering at U-M, adopted one of their format radio station where she was a guest in May with both Flint Mayor who rely on them – will face unprecedented stresses in the coming decades. to translate that into something useful. children from Ethiopia. rough visits to the country, Love has come to Karen Weaver and the leader of the Flint Area Community Health and Developed countries must contend with aging pipes and treatment plants, “Nancy is a role model in that she understands this. It’s one thing to understand its childhood stunting problem. Environment Partnership (FACHEP), Wayne State University professor while developing nations will need to gure out how to provide access to safe have a solution. It’s quite another thing to get people to implement it.” Stunted children don’t reach their full height potential because of poor Shawn McElmurry. On the air, they discussed steps that vulnerable drinking water and manage the sewage and industrial wastewater of growing nutrition and frequent diarrhea episodes that leave their bodies unable to residents can take to limit their risk to any waterborne diseases. cities. All this while the climate changes, shifting the patterns of precipitation In Ethiopia, a world of different absorb enough nutrients from food. Beyond being short, a child can su er Today, her destination is the FACHEP headquarters. She’ll be meeting that we’ve long depended on to replenish supplies. water worries cognitive delays and chronic health conditions if the condition isn’t caught with McElmurry and the local people who are gathering samples. In her own state, and on the other side of the world, Love is working Flint is a testament to how precarious water systems can be in a developed before he or she turns 5. Government programs are improving the situa- “We’re not from this community,” Love said. “ e greater trust is going closely with community collaborators not only to prove how dire the prob- country with centralized water treatment: ushing toilets and running taps tion, but studies estimate that more than 35 percent of Ethiopian children to come from people who are. And the more we can push grant money to lems are, but also to put solutions in place. Both her approach and her end at the ends of intricate networks of pipes and treatment complexes. are stunted. To assess the role that waterborne pathogens play in childhood employ Flint residents and train them on how to sample and monitor their goal represent the type of public engagement that public institutions like In the nancially strapped city, residents were exposed to lead in their stunting, Love is working with two faculty members in U-M’s School of own water, rather than have our students do it for them, the better. To me, U-M arguably owe to society. drinking water when a water source switch didn’t meet with an appropriate Public Health – Joe Eisenberg, chair and professor of epidemiology; and I don’t see any other way.” Across academia, distinguished researchers – from up-and-coming water treatment switch. High levels of lead, a neurotoxin, were found in Andrew Jones, assistant professor of nutritional sciences. at’s not a common perspective. junior faculty members to big-shot tenured professors – focus their careers children’s blood. e city is still reeling. ey visited Addis Ababa in July 2016 to get started. As in Flint, the Love is the Borchardt and Glysson Collegiate Professor in the on solving the grand challenges of our time. ey identify key research e developing world has di erent water complexities. Just 14 percent project will employ local residents to gather samples and involve a close University of Michigan Department of Civil and Environmental questions. ey nd eye-opening answers. ey publish them in peer- of Africa, for example, is connected to a sewer system. ough centralized collaboration with Ethiopian researchers from Addis Ababa University Engineering. She’s a former department chair, a licensed professional reviewed journals with high-impact factors and present them at conferences. water treatment may not be the answer, the United Nations has called (AAU). e team is aiming to obtain data from 700 children between the
28 #UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER FALL 2017 g engin.umich.edu 29 (From left to right) Georges Manard, a Flint resident working with Love and colleagues to sample water, calibrates a testing instrument. Love and Shawn McElmurry, associate professor at Wayne State University and Flint Area Community Health and Environment Partnership project (FACHEP) leader, go over plans. FACHEP staff member Kwesi Reynolds drafts a work plan (foreground) while Nasienka Francis discusses the day’s plans with Love and McElmurry.
ages of 6 and 24 months. ey’ll take fecal samples from a subset of requires electricity. We don’t get enough electricity at the household level, “I think sometimes we start with good intentions but possibly not and did the radiation,” Love said, “and three years later, it was gone and the children, interview family members and observe how they handle let alone for the wastewater.” knowing how colonialist our behaviors are,” Love said, remembering the I was fully functional.” water in their households. ey will test their samples for waterborne e city of Addis Ababa has two centralized plants that supply drink- rst draft of the rst grant she wrote with international colleagues. A few months after radiation treatment had ended, she met pathogens, as well as three in ammation markers that the literature ing water to some parts of the city. But the taps are sometimes turned “Systems work in cultures, and if you don’t understand the culture, someone at a conference who’d had a good friend with the same brain suggests are present in stunted children. o for system maintenance and it is not uncommon for water ow to you don’t understand the system. You have to go in and listen. And malformation. e friend had opted for surgery and died on the table. Once they have a handle on what pathogens may be infecting the chil- stop due to power outages. And as the city grows – which it’s doing fast through the academic capacity building we’re doing, the hope is that they “Once I heard that story I let everything go at that moment,” Love dren, they can move to guring out how to slow their spread or eradicate – it will need to rely more on decentralized approaches. ose include can train the future engineers and public health ocials in order to better said. “I knew I had done the right thing.” them in communities. e plan will take shape based on what they nd. treatment systems at the community level. An apartment complex, for equip them to make these engineering and public health decisions for And that was to trust her gut. “Chlorine treatment won’t kill cryptosporidium, for example,” Love example, could have its own on-site setup. their country. So the solutions will be their solutions.” It would be a few more years before Love, and her husband Brian, said. “You’d have to boil the water to get rid of it. And we see certain pro- Desta, Love and other faculty at AAU’s engineering school have been who was also at Virginia Tech, made the move to Michigan. tozoa come through water lters, so water lters wouldn’t o er complete working together to develop curriculum around decentralized systems. For the next generation ey were close to accepting o ers here when Virginia Tech became protection as a single form of treatment. Di erent waterborne agents will “It’s very essential,” Desta said. “ e next generation of engineers Love has always seen her graduate students – the next generation of the site of the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history. In April 2007, call for di erent strategies.” should be technically capable of working with decentralized systems. is water engineers – as the product of her work. As time has passed, her a gunman murdered 32 people and injured 25. Many were people the Broader scale solutions will need to come from Ethiopians themselves, is going to be one of the sustainable ways to manage the waste coming priorities have broadened. It’s been a long road a ected by personal Loves knew personally – students, a friend, a collaborator. and Love is working with others to lay the groundwork there as well. out of our cities. And sustainability in this context is measured by how struggles and life circumstances. “You don’t go through something like that and not be changed,” you can deal with the waste without expending more energy.” Before she came to U-M, Love spent 13 years at Virginia Tech, Love said. What’s missing from textbooks Desta is often struck by Love’s resilience. She smiles warmly as she where she won awards for her teaching, research and mentorship. ey almost didn’t follow through with their plans to leave. “When it comes to water treatment, more than half the world relies on describes her colleague’s combination of patience and tenacity. Midway through her time there, she was diagnosed with a brain Ultimately, they did. at December, they ew to Guatemala City, technologies that we do not teach in our classes, and that we do not “It’s very tricky for someone who has everything on hand and who arteriovenous malformation, or AVM. where they adopted their rst son. Brian went back to Blacksburg to research in our labs,” Love said. can get anything they want at any time to come to a place where there is A tangle of veins had developed deep in her brain, causing problems drive their car and cats through the Midwest and Nancy ew to Detroit e textbooks cover the half of the world that relies on centralized absolutely nothing you can get whenever you want – including power, with her vision and balance. She’d need to get rid of it, but she had to with a baby. systems. A large part of Ethiopia is in the other half. sometimes,” Desta said. “But I have never seen her be frustrated. She decide whether to take a chance on a series of surgeries that could leave ey settled into their new life, she as the rst female department Adey Desta is an assistant professor at the Institute of Biotechnology at always has Plan B and Plan C on hand: If we can’t do this, can we do her partially blind, or undergo radiation therapy. For months she couldn’t chair in Michigan Engineering’s history, and he as a professor in his AAU. On Twitter, she calls herself “janitor of the Earth’s aquatic system.” that? If we can’t get this, can we get that? She’ll go through hundreds of choose. She mulled over the literature and eventually decided on surgery. current department. Both of them as parents. Eventually they adopted She and Love have been collaborating for several years. options sometimes. But over and over again, as the day approached, she’d get sick. their second son from Ethiopia. “What is in the textbooks is very beautiful, but we cannot achieve “I’ve learned a lot from her.” “I nally realized that my intuition was screaming at me: Don’t do Love’s children have given her work more meaning, and in some ways, that,” Desta said. “Centralized systems require a lot of electricity. You And Love has learned a lot from Desta and other colleagues who live the surgery. Do the radiation. I was following my intellect and wasn’t they’ve directed it. “I’ve taken something from these countries,” she said, have to supply oxygen for the waste to be clari ed and supplying oxygen or work in Ethiopia. listening to my intuition. en, I nally listened, canceled the surgery “and so I feel compelled to give something back.”
30 #UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER FALL 2017 g engin.umich.edu 31 “It’s one thing to have a solution. It’s quite another thing to get people to implement it.”
Running water for several minutes in the morning, and then for 15 seconds through lters before using it, can dramatically cut bacterial counts. “Flushing as we recommend can reduce the bacteria levels in water by 10 or 100 times,” Love said in a news release this summer, underscoring the message she had delivered on the radio in May. “We want to tell people what they can do to reduce their exposure,” Love said. “We are concerned that using a sole ltering device with water that we found to be microbiologically unstable in some regions of Flint can put vulnerable populations at risk.” Flint illuminates a national issue that’s most pronounced in the post-in- dustrial upper Midwest and Northeast where urban populations have dwin- dled. Fewer residents mean less demand and longer travel time for water
(Left to right) The growing skyline of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia behind an urban slum. Cities in the developing world need different drinking water and sanitation solutions than their Western in the pipes. And if utilities don’t maintain the system, the pipes corrode. counterparts. Love talks with colleagues at the Ethiopia-Michigan Platform for Advancing Collaborative Engagement meeting in Addis Ababa in 2015. ese factors combine to make it harder to maintain enough disinfectant to keep the water as safe as it should be. Bacteria can ourish in niches. “While bacteria in appropriately disinfected water are generally harmless, we should not assume that what was true about bacteria in pipes 20 years ago is true today as the types and virulence of pathogens have When she received her named professorship in 2016, the Borchardt Soon after he launched FACHEP, McElmurry invited Love to join Understanding Flint’s faucet-mounted evolved,” Love said. and Glysson Collegiate Professor, she vowed to use her endowment because of her strong reputation in water systems – both the drinking side water filters Utilities aren’t required by law to monitor what bacteria are in the water, on projects at the interface of water quality and childhood health. Her and wastewater – and her focus on pollutants. Since October 2015, more than 100,000 faucet-mounted, point-of-use Love points out. ey rely upon what are called “indicator bacteria” that work in both Ethiopia and Flint are steps in that direction. FACHEP’s headquarters is in a shuttered school known as the Broome water lters have been distributed to Flint residents. ese activated don’t tell the complete story about microbial risk to public health. Center. Inside it, coordinators make phone calls and plan their routes, and carbon block lters, which are available at hardware stores, do an excellent Beyond lead in Flint, a rise in bacterial counts sample gatherers pass through in waves. job eliminating heavy metals like lead. But from the start, Love and her An ongoing effort Lead is not the only waterborne concern in Flint. Changes to the water’s Shayne Hodges is one of the sample gatherers. He and his family bought colleagues worried that they could encourage the growth of potentially Whether they’re shrinking or expanding, 21st century urban centers are chemistry and the use of certain lters can increase its bacteria levels. a house in Flint in 2014. Right away he noticed something o with the harmful bacteria. ( ey’re not necessarily concerned about Legionella bringing water issues to the forefront on a global scale. ough Love’s work rough FACHEP, Love has been working with McElmurry at Wayne water. As the water crisis unfolded, he became an activist. on these particular lters, which are connected to kitchen taps and not in Flint and Ethiopia are a world apart in some ways, they also feel similar State, colleagues at U-M and other institutions, as well as Flint residents, “Only thing we do with the water is wash clothes, take a shower and showerheads.) So Love set out to determine strategies to guide Flint to the professor for personal reasons. to quantify and reduce these risks. ush the toilet,” Hodges said. “We don’t brush our teeth with it. None of residents on how to maintain their point-of-use lters and improve their “It’s what I’m supposed to be doing,” Love said. “I’m working with is summer, FACHEP focused on a Legionnaires’ disease study that. We drink bottled water.” water quality. collaborators who have similar values and, together, we’re addressing very – a $3 million, state-funded e ort to determine whether there is a link He and a teammate might visit 12 homes in a day, administering a In August, she and her colleagues published a study based on Ann important and tangible issues. Community-centered research work isn’t between Flint’s water and the Legionnaires’ outbreak that killed 12 half-hour survey about health and behaviors, and getting samples from Arbor water that showed bacterial counts increased 100-fold across easy and one is going to be vulnerable to criticism, but it is easier to move people during the height of the crisis. the hot water heater, the kitchen faucet, a point-of-use faucet lter if the activated carbon block lters. She has not connected that to any diseases through those diculties when working with committed colleagues, and You don’t get the respiratory ailment from drinking water. You catch household has one, and the showerhead. Researchers then analyze these at this point – and it’s probable that she never will. All water contains when I know the work outcomes are centered on the greater good.” it from breathing in aerosolized bacteria in the shower. Healthy people samples for various water quality indicators and the presence of bacteria bacteria, and a majority of people aren’t susceptible to them. ose She is trusting her intuition. aren’t all that susceptible, but the elderly and those with compromised like Legionella. who might be are vulnerable populations like the elderly, people with “I try to focus on what’s important,” Love said, hearkening back to her immune systems are vulnerable. “I love this job,” said Hodges. “I’d do it for free. And when I see the compromised immune systems and young children. Even if direct brain malformation recovery. “Sometimes I’ll catch myself forgetting and e study is a complicated task, involving not only researchers results in the news reports, I know they’re correct. ‘Cause I took them.” connections aren’t made, Love says it’s important to identify risks. I’ll think, you know, I was supposed to learn this lesson.” from di erent disciplines at multiple institutions, but also a list of city, At this point, the FACHEP team has identi ed a strain of Legionella She and her colleagues are currently examining the microbiological As she said this, she pulled into the Broome Center in Flint and the county, state and federal agencies. And, of course, the Flint residents in Flint water that can cause disease but is not detected by routine clinical quality of water coming through point-of-use lters in Flint. ey’re GPS interrupted: “Arriving at your destination.” e electronic voice spoke who take the water samples. tests; the people who died of Legionnaires’ weren’t tested for this strain. looking to see if there’s an association between microorganisms in a truth beyond the geographic. At this point in Love’s career, her work “ is type of broad collaboration was intentional,” said McElmurry, who Many questions remain and the team is further assessing the situation. Flint water and disease. When they compared Flint and Ann Arbor aligns with her vision of what it means to be an environmental engineer at is also a licensed professional engineer. “We wanted to engage with residents While Love was involved in this work, it was led by Michele Swanson, a water, they noticed some di erences in the type and numbers of a public research institution, and she is grateful to the colleagues and so this could be something that they were part of and they were doing for professor of microbiology and immunology at the U-M Medical School. microorganisms present. communities that have helped her get there. But this work isn’t done. their community, rather than have it be something being done to them. Love leads another track that’s looking into whether water lters that were ey’re still nalizing the Flint study. Collaborating with disparate groups takes time, and it can be circuitous. Beyond that, there was more going on than one discipline could handle.” distributed to help alleviate the crisis actually compounded it. In the meantime, they are getting an important message out to residents: In a bigger sense, she’s still en route.
32 #UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER FALL 2017 g engin.umich.edu 33 BUILDING A STRONGER HAITI WITH CHOCOLATE Meet the Michigan Engineer who walked away from a six-figure career to help farmers and create jobs, building Haiti’s first bean-to-bar chocolate operation in her hometown. Story by: Gabe Cherry Photos by: Marcin Szczepanski “I didn’t want to wake up at 60 having never tried to do anything for Haiti.”
Outside, the gas station’s lights lend a glow to pounding raindrops. e station is closed but they’ve left the lights on for security, drawing a swarm of stranded buses and motorcycles. e heavy air smells of charcoal smoke and sodden travelers. Creole rap music plays from a radio. In many places, a night like this would qualify as a catastrophe. In Haiti, it’s a hurdle – discouraging but not entirely unexpected. ere’s nothing to do but handle it. And, dressed in a pink tank top, khakis and cornrows that point to a bun, that’s precisely what Sanon is doing. e 32-year-old Michigan Engineering and Wharton School grad, industrial engineer and Haitian entrepreneur has found dinner for the crew. She passes out a stack of Styrofoam containers lled with fried chicken and cold spaghetti. She also brings news: the ood is worse than it looks. ey may be stuck here until morning. She grins wryly behind her red-framed glasses. “We promised you adventure,” she says, and produces a stack of paper napkins, unaccountably dry. For Sanon, the ood is just another variable in a decision tree that has been ticking through her mind since she founded Les Chocolateries Askanya two years ago. She left a six- gure consulting job in New York to be here, returning to her native Haiti to start the country’s rst bean- to-bar chocolate operation. Located in Ouanaminthe, a border city in northeastern Haiti, Askanya harvests raw cacao beans and turns them into nished, wrapped bars. Bean-to-bar had been done in a few other developing countries, like Grenada and Ecuador. But not in Haiti. Haiti has few good roads, little electricity and a government that’s often in ux. Nothing is easy when tomorrow could bring anything from a stolen wallet to a ood or a coup, and running a factory is a particularly tall order. But Sanon has designed Askanya to do more than make chocolate. At its core, it’s a machine that churns out better futures for Haitians. Having grown up in Haiti, Sanon knew the hurdles to running a business here. Being an engineer, she knew she could overcome them. e weary crew looks up as Corinne Joachim Sanon announces herself, “I was one of the lucky ones, far luckier than the majority of her face emerging from the rainy night. Squeezed into the bed of a covered Haitians,” she said. “I went to a good school and a great university and pickup, her crew has spent all day harvesting cacao in an isolated Haitian have a great life. But I didn’t want to wake up at 60 having never tried farming village. Sanon budgeted three hours for the 70-mile trip back to to do anything for Haiti.” town. at was seven hours ago. So, Sanon divides her time between Askanya’s distribution center At 11 p.m., they’re stranded at a gas station near the city of Cap in Brooklyn and its factory in Ouanaminthe. She makes a fraction of Haitien. Torrential rain has turned the road ahead into a river. To make her old salary, heading an operation that runs on hired pickups, hard matters worse, the driver of one of the two hired pickup trucks has given labor and endless patience. It isn’t glamorous or high-tech, especially up and turned back. e 10-member crew is now shoehorned into a on nights like this. single vehicle along with 14 buckets of raw cacao beans. e cacao is “Most of the time, my family thinks I’m crazy,” she says. “ ey’d snugly sealed against the rain blowing in. e crew, not so much. Soaked rather see me in a safer, more traditional career path. But they to the skin, they sit on benches, buckets and each other. understand that this is what I choose, and they’ve grown more proud To stay fresh, the beans need to get to the fermentation and drying and supportive as they’ve seen the business growing.” Opposing page: A view of the flooding out the back of Askanya’s truck. Top: Cacao farmer center near the town of Ouanaminthe within 24 hours of harvest – that’s Askanya coaxes 6,000 artfully wrapped, organic, single-origin Deceus Jean Gilles climbs a tree to harvest cacao pods for sale to Askanya. The vast 8 a.m. It’s not going to be easy. chocolate bars each month from one of the most unforgiving places majority of the world’s cacao is grown by small farmers. Bottom: Corinne Joachim Sanon questions the quality of the pods she is buying from a farmer who is holding the machete he 36 #UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER uses to open them. Left: Corinne Joachim Sanon displays a freshly-opened cacao pod. Center: Askanya production head James Dobson Bélizaire stirs cacao on a drying table to help it dry more evenly. Right: Corinne Joachim Sanon naps after the harvested cacao is brought safely to Askanya’s fermenting and drying facility.
identity. After independence, they were allowed access only to the sloping tarp spread near a crossroads. e manager of the harvest team carefully “Engineers like Corinne have to understand this whole world land near the base of Haiti’s foothills – above its at plains, but below the notes what time each farmer arrives and counts the st-sized yellow outside the core equations. And there’s something exciting about that,” lucrative co ee-growing zones in the mountains. ey’ve been growing pods. e farmers get seven Haitian gourdes (about ten U.S. cents) per said Cohn, an Arthur F. urnau Associate Professor of Industrial “In Haiti, having a plan B crops like plantain, breadfruit, cacao and mango ever since, enough to eat pod, about one-third more than they’d get from a larger company. At & Operations Engineering. “Whatever you care about, you can take and a little to sell. this rate, 100 cacao trees can earn a family 800 U.S. dollars a year, a this set of industrial operations engineering tools and use it to make a isn’t enough...you have to University of Guelph PhD candidate Jenn Vansteenkiste has been solid middle-class income in Haiti. di erence. So it’s not surprising to me that this is something that an working with Haitian farmers for years. She says Haiti’s government has After the pods are counted, the other two members of the harvest industrial engineer would choose to do. Plus, there’s chocolate.” have backup plans all the long ignored small rural villages, leaving a deteriorating infrastructure that team begin extracting the beans. One holds a pod in an outstretched makes it dicult for farmers to earn a living. hand and hacks through its thick husk with a machete. After a few FERMENTING AND DRYING way through to Z.” “ e state has always been very extractive of the peasantry,” she said. hacks, he deftly twists the machete blade, prying open the pod with a Back at the gas station, the crew has decided to push through the ood “ ere are few schools, few health services, roads are poor. ere needs to crunch like a bitten apple. to reach Cap Haitien. Slogging through knee-deep oodwaters and on Earth, selling them to Haitian hotels, online buyers and high-end be investment, and that hasn’t happened.” Inside sits the payo : a lemon-shaped mass of cacao beans sur- a crush of stranded vehicles, it takes them nearly two hours to travel chocolate retailers. It employs dozens of workers and buys cacao from As a result, Haiti’s agriculture sector, which easily fed the country as rounded by glistening white pulp, which gives o a tart, earthy smell. A two miles to the hotel Sanon has secured. ey arrive at 2 a.m. and are thousands of small farmers. recently as the 1970s, has withered in the decades since. e cacao trade worker scoops the beans into a white plastic bucket and tosses the husk back on the road by 6 to get their cacao to the fermentation and drying After a huddle with her team, Sanon decides to give up on reaching is no exception. Haiti is home to some of the best beans in the world, but into a pile. When they’re full, the buckets are sealed and loaded into a center in time. Ouanaminthe tonight. If the road clears, they’ll spend the night in Cap production has fallen from 20,000 tons per year in the 1960s to less than pickup for the journey to Askanya’s fermenting and drying facility. Built from scratch by Sanon and her team, the center sits at the end Haitien, a few miles away. ey’ll need a safe place to stay. And they’ll 4,000 tons in 2014. Most is exported raw and unfermented, which brings Sanon buys half her cacao this way; in the future, she plans to of a narrow dirt path that winds across elds and farmland. Lugging a need to get their cacao to the fermentation facility near Ouanaminthe less money to farmers and invites mold and spoilage. expand these direct buys to as many as 3,000 farmers. She also buys bucket in each hand, the crew carries the cacao over a muddy creek past by 8:00 a.m., a few hours from now. She pulls out her cell phone and In Askanya, Sanon has designed a workaround: a self-contained pre-processed beans from a federation of Haitian farmer cooperatives. cows, chickens and pigs toward the plastic-covered drying tunnels ahead. starts making calls. harvest and processing system that turns raw cacao into nished bars, Soon, she plans to further diversify her supply by starting a 15-hectare As they approach, the smell of fermenting cacao gets stronger: a decidedly bringing maximum revenue to farmers. It’s low-tech, adaptable and farm on land the company already owns. un-chocolatey odor somewhere between spoiled fruit and vinegar. At long THE HARVEST nearly indestructible. “In Haiti, having a plan B isn’t enough,” Sanon said. “You have last, they dump the cacao into a con-sized wooden box. e start of the day couldn’t have been more di erent. Sun streamed First, an agronomist scouts locations ahead of time, using GPS and to have backup plans all the way through to Z. A diverse cacao Careful fermenting and drying bring out the cacao’s distinctive fruit through the leaves of banana trees overhead as the pickup crawled into on-the-ground assessment to make sure there’s enough ripe cacao to make supply will give us that, helping us grow our capacity and continue and oral notes, helping Askanya claim top dollar for their nished the jungle on a cratered dirt path. Harvest trips like these happen two the dicult journey worthwhile. to help farmers.” chocolate bars. at’s important because Sanon needs to squeeze or three times each week during the two cacao seasons, from March Next, a nine-member crew heads to the harvest site. is generally Sanon says demand for cacao is growing, from 4,000 tons per year maximum value from every bean to fund the labor-intensive harvesting through May and September through November. ey start with includes two three-member harvest teams, a driver and two helpers who when Askanya started to around 6,000 tons today. at means higher and transportation process and pay the farmers a good price. So, working the farmers nearest to Askanya and travel further out as the season stay with the driver – they can push a stranded truck out of the mud or prices for farmers and more cacao trees in the ground, helping to with a chocolate consultant from Seattle, she designed a system of self- progresses, journeying to the isolated villages where small farmers grow unload it before a dicult river crossing. Sanon has built relationships stabilize Haiti’s badly deforested hillsides. contained fermenting and drying modules. cacao. Usually, they work with about 50 farmers, turning 5,000 cacao with a network of for-hire trucks and drivers to get harvest teams in and U-M assistant professor Amy Cohn teaches the methods class First the cacao ferments, sandwiched between layers of burlap and pods into 1,600 pounds of raw beans. cacao out. that Sanon credits with helping her start Askanya. Cohn says this banana leaves, for a week. e beans are then transferred to wooden Small farmers have been walking these dirt roads for centuries. ey In old rice sacks, metal pans and on the backs of donkeys, farmers combination of engineering theory and on-the-ground know-how is drying racks where they dry for two to three weeks, taking on a brown make up 60 percent of Haiti’s population and an even larger part of its bring their cacao to an improvised harvest site – usually just a clean what sets industrial and operations engineers apart. color that begins to look like chocolate. Drying is an unpredictable
38 #UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER FALL 2017 g engin.umich.edu 39 “Haiti is a very patriarchal society,” Sanon explains. “I want people wrapped by two workers, who carefully crease two layers of wrapping to see that women can be great employees and leaders. I try to make over each and every nished bar. sure that everyone is treated equally, whether you’re a girl or a boy, Askanya’s labor-intensive operation is a matter of necessity in Haiti. Catholic or Protestant or Vodouisant.” Economies of scale don’t work and neither does just-in-time delivery. After roasting, the cacao goes through a process called cracking, sepa- ere isn’t enough electricity to run big machines, and if they break, rating the outer shell from the meat inside, called the nib. First, a worker there are no parts to x them. But for Sanon, engineering isn’t about cracks the beans open with an old peanut butter grinder. Next, the machines or technology. It’s about designing the best system and mak- ground beans are spread onto a at, shallow Haitian basket called a laye. ing it work, day in and day out. Sitting in front of a fan, a worker scoops beans out of the laye and “I’m a U-M IOE engineer – that’s how we are, right?” she explains. holds the scoop high, slowly shaking the beans out. e fan blows the “We’re tough, we try hard. We try di erent ways until it works.” lighter shells away while the heavier nibs fall into the laye. e approach has enabled Askanya to succeed where few others e nibs are then pulverized in a process called conching. is re- have. e factory may be small, but its added value funds the entire quires the factory’s most specialized equipment – three squat, knee-high Askanya supply chain. Vansteenkiste, who has started several Haitian machines. eir steel urns turn slowly as heavy granite wheels inside ventures herself, says it’s a game changer. crush the nibs into silky brown liquid chocolate. It’s at this stage that “Value-added processing is where money can be made. Haiti does other ingredients – milk, cacao butter or other avorings, depending on very little of it because processed imports are cheap to buy and too the recipe – are added. Conching takes 72 hours and sometimes has to competitive, but community based organizations do design niche be stopped and restarted as the electricity comes and goes. projects,” Vansteenkiste explains. “ e beauty is that they invest Left: Jocelyne Diometre uses a laye to separate cacao shells from the nib inside. And electricity does come and go. Ouanaminthe’s electrical grid, back into the people; they don’t take the money and put it in a Right: Workers wrap finished bars at the Askanya factory in Ouanaminthe. when it’s working, provides power from about 6 p.m. until midnight. shareholder’s pocket.” THE FACTORY e rest of the time, the only electricity comes from the diesel generator To Sanon, Askanya is also an example that shows would-be process that varies with the weather, so Sanon has incorporated six drying Askanya’s factory is easy to spot, a bright pop of yellow and turquoise that drones out back. Fuel is a big expense, as is bringing in maintenance Haitian entrepreneurs, the government and others what small tables for each of the 10 fermentation boxes. e boxes must be lled at that stands out among the battered buildings on Ouanaminthe’s noisy technicians from the larger city of Cap Haitien. But it’s the only way. business can do. As more cacao becomes available and Askanya’s least 90 percent full to ferment properly, so they need to be carefully sized main street. is is the nal destination for the cacao beans, where they’re From here, the liquid chocolate goes into a sealed cold room – the farm comes online, she hopes to quadruple capacity, expanding to to hold one day’s cacao harvest. Ultimately, the center will grow to 80 roasted, ground and turned into one of three di erent avors of high-end only room at Askanya with air conditioning. It’s poured into a small 10 to 12 avors over the next ve years. Ultimately, she believes this tons of capacity, enough to accommodate larger buys from small farmers chocolate bars. tabletop machine for tempering, a series of precise heating and cooling could go far beyond chocolate. and process the cacao from the planned on-site farm. What stands out most about the factory is its small size. It occupies the cycles that nudge the cacao molecules toward a particular crystal “I think the future of Haiti is going to be a mix of agricultural and For the harvesting crew, this trip has been even more grueling than rst oor of a modest two-story house with bright yellow concrete walls and structure. is produces the glossy sheen that chocolate buyers expect. light manufacturing,” she says. “What we’re doing with chocolate could most. But James Dobson Bélizaire, Askanya’s head of production, takes it well-worn tile oors. ere are no assembly lines, no conveyors, no gleaming It’s then ladled by hand into molds and cooled for about 30 minutes be done with water bottling, trash removal, juice making. It’s not in stride. Like the beans themselves, he has travelled a long and dicult stainless steel tanks. in a refrigerator. Finally, the cooled bars are trimmed by hand and rocket science. It’s all possible. And it could change a lot of lives.” road to get here. Instead, 32 year-old Jocelyne Diometre sits in the front room surrounded Bélizaire grew up in Cité Soleil, one of the most dangerous and by 80-pound sacks of cacao beans. She’s sorting them by size, an essential destitute slums in Port-au-Prince. His family was poor – some nights, step because small beans roast faster than large ones. One bean at a time dinner was a stalk of sugarcane. Only about half of Cité Soleil children plinks into the steel bowls in front of her. Once a bowl is full, she pours it attend school. Bélizaire’s parents saw that he was bright and made sure he onto a metal baking sheet and slides it into an electric oven about the size of “I try to make sure was one of them. a countertop microwave. 30 minutes later, she takes it out and dumps the In the 1990s, things got more dicult: president Jean-Bertrand beans on a metal screen to cool. that everyone is Aristide began giving guns to Cité Soleil’s street children in an attempt Diometre has worked in Askanya’s factory for about a year – some days she to tighten his grip on power. e family had to ee to northern Haiti to sorts beans, other days she handles the pouring or the wrapping of the bars. She treated equally, escape the violence. makes about $100 per month, enough to send her three children to a Catholic “I was lucky,” he explains. “I had a good family and they made sure school, one of the best in Ouanaminthe. Like Askanya’s other employees, whether you’re a girl I stayed away from the guns. But the other kids all had them, and it was the company pays the taxes on her earnings and also provides meals, English too dangerous to stay.” lessons, disability insurance, paid holidays and a year-end bonus. or a boy, Catholic Still, he continued his education. In 2007, he was one of 4,900 Before starting on at Askanya, Diometre was a live-in housekeeper in students who applied for admission to Université d’Etat d’Haiti’s business the Dominican Republic. She was away from home six days a week, with or Protestant or school. Of those, 300 passed the exam. Bélizaire was among them. risky trips back and forth across the border to work. Once, she was accused Now 28, he makes about $450 per month, an impressive salary in a of stealing and had to stay in jail until it was discovered that her employer’s Vodouisant.” country where per-capita GDP is $863. Bélizaire sees the job as a way to relative was the real culprit. Here, she’s learning about the chocolate business, help Haiti reclaim its agricultural heritage and make a product that shows and she has begun thinking about what her children, ages 10, 9 and 5, might people – inside Haiti and elsewhere – what Haitians are capable of. do with the education they’re getting. “Before Askanya, all our chocolate came from the USA. Now that has “I’d like my two boys to be agronomists,” she says, “And my daughter? changed. I’m helping the people who plant cacao get more money, I’m A doctor.” helping the other workers get money and I’m promoting Haiti. We can Askanya employs ve other factory operators, all women. Sanon transform Haiti by growing and processing more food here, and I plan to works to create a culture at Askanya that’s much di erent than most be a part of it.” Haitian employers.
Corinne Joachim Sanon at the entrance of the Askanya factory. 40 #UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER SOMETHING GROOVY THIS WAY GOES BEFORE “GEEK” WAS “COOL,” MICHIGAN ENGINEERS STILL FOUND TIME FOR FACT-FINDING, FASHION – AND FUN.
BY: RANDY MILGROM All photos courtesy Bentley Historical Library Can we dig it?
Bummer
LEFT: Keep Not yet a paperless world, and well before pocket computers, students had to check social media – painstakingly slowly – at on Truckin’ the Computing Center.
ABOVE: Making adjustments before a wind-tunnel experiment. PRIOR PAGES: They’re not just proud of their checked pants and striped shirts. That Wankel (or rotary ABOVE LEFT: combustion) engine on the right was developed An intent lab student labors alone. as the powerplant for Michigan’s entry in the 1972 Urban Vehicle Design Competition. FAR LEFT: Students reviewing their notes. Far out
Right on!
Hang loose
TOP: LEFT: Loads of bushy mustaches, hair and sideburns in the chemical In 1972, mechanical and electrical engineering students built engineering lab – but no goggles? Maybe those broad-rimmed an automobile “particularly suited to an urban environment.” specs did the job. Though its report conceded that it had not forged any “earth- shaking technological breakthroughs,” the team did focus on BOTTOM: curbing emissions, enhancing safety, decreasing size and cost, Dean Dave Ragone probes students’ minds. In the early 1970s it and improving drivability, handling, and styling. was thought that sitting on, rather than behind, desks made for more informal discussions – and turned conversationalists into better listeners. Heavy Mellow
Out of sight
UPPER LEFT: ABOVE: The Michigan Technic – established in 1888 – proclaimed itself the oldest The honorary mechanical engineering society Pi Tau Sigma sponsored student-run publication of its kind. Under financial strife for much of the the first Egg Drop Competition. Students constructed containers, last century, it staved off a 1960s administrative push to merge it out placed eggs in them and dropped the whole kit and caboodle from of existence. These early 1970s staffers may have joked through their West Engineering’s fourth floor. Unexpectedly large crowds gathered troubles, but before the decade was out the Technic was gone. to witness the splatter. FAR-OUT FLICKS Are you picking up what we’re laying down? Then stay in the groove with UPPER MID AND LEFT: our secret stash of 1960s home movies. From a brand-new North Campus to Some things never change: In tiny dorm rooms, some students hitching a ride on the Diag, get a glimpse of an Ann Arbor that’s gone forever. studied – despite the allure of a free “psychedelic cider sip” – while umicheng.in/NAME_reels others hung out (and hung laundry over furniture) and played. VICTORS FOR ENGINEERING TIP TOP TOW TANK EXPANDING ROBOTICS FACULTY GIFTS FOR DETROIT STUDENTS
Faculty invest a lot in Michigan Engineering through a career of 50 research and teaching and public service. As these funds illustrate, they sometimes choose to invest in other ways as well.
MICHIGAN ENGINEERS ARE STEPPING FORWARD FOR DOCTORAL STUDENTS TO TRANSFORM THE COLLEGE – AND THE WORLD – PhD students in Materials Science and Engineering have gained a VICTORS STEP UP IN OUR $1 BILLION RESOURCE-GENERATION EFFORT valuable resource. Robert D. (BSE MetE ’55) and Julie A. Pehlke have provided a gift to endow a fund to provide them with fellowship support. Pehlke, a professor emeritus who joined the faculty in 1960, has also endowed a lectureship in materials processing to bring SHIP SHAPE speakers to campus. e changes will include a new interior vestibule that FOR THE MOST CITED showcases the testing basin, renovations to oces and research Publishing papers that are cited could earn an award, thanks to the gift spaces and an upgraded and relocated computer lab with a of another professor emeritus. e Mechanical Engineering faculty retractable glass wall that will enable students to observe the member who has the year’s largest number of citations in Scopus, the Marcin Szczepanski PHOTO: testing being conducted in the basin. database of academic journal articles, will receive the E. & M. Ulsoy Overall, the renovation will focus on creating a space that’s Citation Leader Award. e fund for the award was created by A. Galip Students work at the MEZ, which is outfitted with computer labs, a machine shop, worthy of the tow tank’s heritage – it was the rst university- Ulsoy, C.D. Mote Jr. Distinguished University Professor Emeritus and a robot testing area, and collaborative workshops. aliated facility of its kind in the United States when it was William Clay Ford Professor of Manufacturing Emeritus, and Susan More Detroit-area high school students will have access to built, and is still the largest. Renovations are now in progress Glowski. Ulsoy joined the faculty in 1980. expanded hands-on science and engineering after-school and re-opening is scheduled for January 2018. programs, thanks to a $250,000 Google grant to a U-M e facility will also get a new name: e Aaron Friedman FOR UNDERGRADS IN NEED makerspace in Midtown. Marine Hydrodynamics Lab. Friedman was a 1943 naval Four professors emeriti – George I. Haddad, Don B. Cha n, David architecture and marine engineering alumnus who earned J. Anderson and omas B. A. Senior – have joined to endow the e Michigan Engineering Zone, or MEZ, provides space, an undergraduate degree in naval architecture and marine Engineering Emeritus Faculty Scholarship Fund. It will provide mentorship and tools for hundreds of students from across engineering and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering need-based scholarship support to Michigan Engineering the metro area who compete in the national FIRST Robotics from U-M. He served in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World undergraduate students. program each year. War II and had a lifelong love of boats and the water. Haddad (BSE EE ’56, MSE ’58, PhD ’63) joined the faculty in FIRST students design, build and test robots that perform An artist’s rendering of the new exhibit space in the Aaron Friedman Marine Hydrodynamics Lab. “ e knowledge that my father gained at U-M is some- 1961, retiring in 2005 as the Robert J. Hiller Professor of Electrical di erent tasks every year. e MEZ is a collaboration among thing that stayed with him every day of his life,” said Barbara Engineering and Computer Science. Chan (PhD ’67), the Richard the University of Michigan College of Engineering, Detroit Friedman-Kohler, Aaron Friedman’s daughter and a 1973 G. Snyder Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, joined the Public Schools and FIRST to encourage young people to he outside of 112-year-old West Hall, which houses the Marine Hydrodynamics alumna of what was then the U-M College of Architecture and Industrial and Operations Engineering department in 1969, was pursue careers in science and technology elds. Laboratory, looks much the same as it did when Michigan Engineer Aaron Design. “I hope this gift will help make the lab a place that named the G. Lawton and Louise G. Johnson Professor of Engineering is spring, the MEZ nished its eighth season with TFriedman studied there in the 1940s. But inside, the lab is getting a 21st century draws in and inspires today’s students, that helps them see that in 1993, and retired in 2007. 18 teams and more than 275 students. Its leaders have makeover, thanks in part to a gift from Friedman’s family. with a great education, the sky is the limit.” David J. Anderson joined the department of Electrical Engineering recently added summer camps that reach 100 more and Computer Science in 1970, Otorhinolaryngology in 1971, and students, and in-depth coding workshops for students Biomedical Engineering in 1997. He retired in 2005. And omas B. who want to learn more. e grant from Google will allow SUPPORTING FIRST-GEN STUDENTS A. Senior joined the department of Electrical Engineering’s Radiation the program to build the infrastructure to expand by 33 Laboratory in 1957. An Arthur F. urnau Professor, Senior retired in percent to reach a total of 500 students per year. “Why can’t you just be a regular doctor?” Don Kania’s mother asked help graduate students stay the course despite the challenges. 1998 as associate chair for academic a airs. “Participating in robotics is what cultivated my as he applied to Michigan’s PhD program in nuclear engineering. e new fellowship fund, which is matched by the University’s passion for engineering,” said Wayne Lester, a 2017 U-M She wanted to be supportive, Kania knew, but as he and his Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Initiative, will help the Department of FOR SPECIAL PROJECTS aerospace engineering graduate who rst came to the MEZ brother were the family’s rst college grads, she didn’t have a context Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences support students who Student projects for Computer Science and Engineering will get a boost as a high school student. “I loved every moment I spent at for graduate school and the opportunities in a technical eld. are the rst generation in their families to attend college or graduate from a CSE professor and his company. Lattice Data, Inc., which was co- the MEZ, whether build season, ACT practice, or other Don’s wife, Renee DuBois, was in the same boat. She was the rst in school, who have overcome substantial educational or economic founded by assistant professor Michael Cafarella, has made a donation academic-focused workshops, it was all so helpful for me. her family to go to college, going on to earn a master’s degree in social obstacles, or who come from an educational, cultural or geographic to the Computer Science and Engineering Special Projects Fund, an “Being around many of the U-M student mentors, work at U-M. background that is underrepresented in engineering graduate study. endowment that supports student projects, special instructional needs, I had the opportunity to ask all the questions I wanted eir experiences motivated Kania (BSE NE ’77, MSE ’79, PhD If NERS has no such candidate, the fellowship can instead help a seminars and special visitors to the division and other activities related to about college.” ’81; BS ’77, MS ’80 (LSA)) and DuBois (AB ’78 (LSA), MSW ’80) student in a di erent engineering discipline at U-M. the mission of the division. During the 2016 MEZ season, 38 of the 40 high school to help students who don’t otherwise have the resources or family “Our Michigan experience set the stage for us to be successful, Lattice Data is a data intelligence company that transforms “dark seniors at the MEZ were accepted to two- or four-year support to pursue advanced degrees. For that reason, they have and we’d just like to help others have the same opportunity,” data,” such as unstructured text and images, into high quality structured colleges or universities. Of these, 80 percent planned to created the Don R. Kania and Renee L. DuBois Fellowship Fund to said DuBois. data for use by traditional data analysis tools. pursue an education and career in science or technology.
#UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER FALL 2017 g engin.umich.edu VICTORS FOR ENGINEERING LOOK WHO’S DRIVING
52 53 ANN ARBOR A HUB FOR
self-driving car project) are all pursuing their own projects and investments. AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES In addition, the area is home to a growing startup culture, including May Mobility, co-founded in Ann Arbor by faculty member Edwin Olson. And students now team up with startups through Techlab at Mcity, a U-M Center for Entrepreneurship course that is one of a growing number of educational o erings designed in response to the increase in autonomous vehicle activity. Meanwhile, the state continues to show signs of support for research, including enacting new laws in December 2016 allowing One of the world’s largest deployments of connected vehicles and infrastructure has been autonomous vehicle testing on public roads. underway for three years, with around 1,500 vehicles traveling the streets of Ann Arbor. is makes Michigan an excellent place to conduct research. increase that number in the near future. Mcity another – ACM – for later stage product devel- also funds research, with about $16 million in opment testing and standards validation,” said VALUES IN ACTION
PHOTOS: Joseph Xu Joseph PHOTOS: projects underway. Volker Sick. Sick, associate vice president for With faculty members leading Mcity and “Mcity is the only advanced mobili- natural sciences and engineering in the U-M Michigan Robotics, and having major Autonomous vehicle research is flourishing in southeast Michigan. This vehicle at the Mcity Test ty R&D center that combines these three Oce of Research and Arthur F. urnau involvement in the American Center for Facility at U-M is an open connected and automated vehicle research platform, or open CAV. components,” said Huei Peng, director of Professor of Mechanical Engineering, oversees Mobility, Michigan Engineering plays a major Mcity and the Roger L. McCarthy Professor Mcity on behalf of the Oce of Research. role in Ann Arbor’s development as a national Early one morning while you were drinking ing and product development facility located overseen by U-M’s Oce of Research, which of Mechanical Engineering, at a demo day at “Together, Mcity and ACM help establish hub of autonomous and connected vehicle your co ee, a driverless Kia Soul cruised around on 335 acres, will soon allow later-stage testing cultivates interdisciplinary research across Mcity this summer. Michigan as the global center of advanced research. ese programs are all examples of a bend at the Mcity Test Facility and abruptly to enable safe validation of connected and U-M’s three campuses. Mcity is perhaps best Perhaps the most impressive – and mobility research and development,” Sick said. Michigan Engineering collaborating in new slowed down and stopped – avoiding a crash automated vehicle technology. known for the Mcity Test Facility, a one- challenging – aspect of Mcity is that it is a Michigan will become even more ways with industry and the state on research with a Honda Accord that neither a human And plans are underway for the Ford of-a-kind simulated urban and suburban partnership between industry, government important as robotics ramps up at Michigan that will improve the way people around the driver, nor the automated vehicle sensors on the Motor Company Robotics Building on North environment where the Kia was driving. Its and academia. It currently has more than Engineering. A $75 million robotics building world get from A to B. Kia, would have been able to see. It is one of Campus, a facility that will bring together and 16 acres of roads and infrastructure is replete 65 industry members, collaborates with the is slated for completion in 2019 and will house It is part of the Michigan Engineering many experiments occurring on a continuous attract leading autonomy researchers. with intersections, trac signs and signals, and Michigan Department of Transportation and top roboticists under one roof, including many DNA to aspire to bring revolutionary, basis at the facility. It’s a region that is buzzing with research construction obstacles. Researchers recently other government agencies, and works with working on problems related to mobility and life-saving, environmentally-conscious Nearby, on public roads across Ann Arbor, projects into how autonomous and connected began using augmented reality to incorporate approximately 50 U-M professors involved in autonomous vehicles. In addition, Ford Motor technologies like driverless vehicles into some 1,500 cars send signals to each other about vehicles will change the world, a nexus that virtual vehicles into testing scenarios at the site Mcity-funded research. Company will locate teams of engineers on the existence. At essence, the College is engineers their speed and direction at a rate of 10 times a prompted the New York Times to call Ann for more robust testing. e facility is highly Fifteen miles away from Mcity is the building’s fourth oor, expanding the limits of who serve the common good. second, in one of the world’s largest operational, Arbor the new Motor City in July. And in sought by industry and academic researchers American Center for Mobility (ACM). e collaboration. e building will be named for is requires creativity and daring. It real-world deployments of connected vehicles many ways, Michigan Engineering – and its because it allows them to repeat tests on new nonpro t is a joint initiative with the State Ford in recognition of a $15 million gift from requires leadership. And it requires nding and infrastructure. It has been underway and commitment to values such as collegiality, col- technologies in a safe, controlled setting before of Michigan and was founded in partnership the company to the College of Engineering. new ways to solve big problems together. collecting data for three years, relying on the laboration and risk-taking – is the reason that trying them in public. with the University of Michigan and several Ford is one of many companies conducting “From the streets of Ann Arbor to the roads same secure, wireless communication between it’s happening here. e test facility is only one aspect other entities. research in southeast Michigan. e Toyota and computers of the Mcity Test Facility,” vehicles that allowed the Kia to avoid the Honda of Mcity. In partnership with the U-M “Nowhere else in the country do facilities Research Institute committed $22 million Peng said,“U-M is leading a transition to inside the Mcity Test Facility. HOTBED OF ACTIVITY Transportation Research Institute, Mcity exist literally within miles of each other that to U-M for research focused on arti cial connected and automated vehicles that will Just a few miles away in Ypsilanti Township, One of the major players in the area is Mcity. participates in the deployment of 1,500 together o er the capability to begin early intelligence, robotics and autonomous driving transform how people and goods move around work continues on a di erent test track. e Originally called the Mobility Transportation connected vehicles on the roads of Ann stage research, testing and on-road deploy- in 2016. And Toyota, General Motors, Fiat the world.” American Center for Mobility, a nonpro t test- Center, the public-private partnership is Arbor and southeast Michigan and plans to ments at one site – Mcity – and graduate to Chrysler, and Waymo (formerly the Google –Brad Whitehouse
#UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER FALL 2017 g engin.umich.edu ALWAYS INNOVATING. AN EDMONSONIAN ACHIEVEMENT BICENTENNIAL
BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING 1960s 55 ALWAYS INNOVATING. FOREVER VALIANT. FOREVER VALIANT.
The University of Michigan THE RISE OF e National Institutes of Health was keen to support the use Bicentennial celebration of engineering in biomedical research, and Edmonson was able to continues throughout 2017 secure a National Institutes of Health training grant in 1969 that with four multi-day festivals, BIOMEDICAL grew the program from 38 students (26 doctoral) in 1969 to 53 culminating on October (31 doctoral) by the end of Edmonson’s time as chairman in 1972. 26-27 with a Campus of the Future Colloquium, faculty ENGINEERING “Feast of Ideas” talks, a BUILDING MOMENTUM time capsule ceremony and the Third Century Expo e 1960s was a time of major upheaval and innovation in e program racked up numerous achievements in the two – a participatory, future- healthcare. Engineers and scientists had regular access to computers decades that followed, including the development of an arti cial oriented, fair-like exposition for the rst time, and they were looking for ways to apply their “spherocentric” knee, creation of a system for heart-lung of Michigan’s cutting-edge new power to improve the healthcare system. At the same time, bypass support, breakthroughs in ergonomics and occupational research and scholarship. the advent of Medicaid and Medicare meant that new innovations biomechanics, leading work in radiation measurement and detection Michigan Engineering would be accessible to larger numbers of patients. for nuclear imaging and the “Michigan Probe” – a multi-channel will continue to add At U-M, researchers had been working to integrate medicine and neural probe that remains a foundational tool for brain research. to its Bicentennial engineering for decades. In 1948, chemical engineering professor Project collection at Cedomir Sliepcevich and his graduate student, Phil Bocquet, initiated A FULL-FLEDGED bicentennial.engin.edu, Michigan’s rst biomedically-oriented chemical engineering research featuring stories that project. Several years after that, chemical engineering professor Lloyd DEPARTMENT both draw meaning from Kempe would pioneer the nation’s rst program in biochemical our illustrious past and engineering and applied microbiology, as multidisciplinary By 2005, Michigan was among nine universities chosen to receive prepare us for an even collaborative research proliferated across the University. the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation’s $5 million Translational more productive future. ose e orts coalesced in 1962, when Michigan Engineering dean Research Partnership Award in Biomedical Engineering. In 2011, it Stephen Attwood established a multi-disciplinary degree-granting received a Coulter Foundation $10 million award that was matched program in the new eld of biomedical engineering. To lead the new by both Michigan Engineering and the Medical School – a clear sign program, he tapped Glenn Edmonson, then associate dean of the of growing cooperation. College. ough he couldn’t know it at the time, Edmonson was one Biomedical Engineering transitioned to a joint department of the rst pioneers on a 50-year journey that would see biomedical between the College of Engineering and U-M Medical School engineering rise from a relatively unknown o shoot to an integral in September 2012. When the formal announcement was made, part of Michigan Engineering. no fewer than 35 Medical School faculty members held shared appointments in the department. Today, William and Valerie Hall Department Chair of Biomedi- LIFTOFF cal Engineering Lonnie Shea shepherds that continuing work, with Biomedical Engineering playing an expanding role in areas such as Without faculty of his own, Edmonson drew on expertise through- immunomodulation, 3D culture, single-cell analysis and in internal out the University. Students were similarly diverse, including medicine in general. working engineers seeking specialty training, medical and would-be “Biomedical engineering has evolved so dramatically that many medical students and some who enrolled following military stints. people don’t realize the role we can play,” Shea says. “As engineers, All took a leap of faith, committing to an untested eld that still we need to understand the challenges faced by physicians in the puzzled industry. clinic and researchers at the bench, and to apply our engineer’s Medical School faculty soon began working with Michigan perspective and novel tools to both advance the research and Engineering, collaborating on projects such as signal processing in clinical practice.” neurons, nuclear imaging and prosthetics – with chemical engi- e department recently hosted a multi-day “50-20-5” bicenten- neering, industrial and operations engineering, nuclear engineering, nial celebration – 50 years as a bioengineering program, 20 years as The titanium-beaded end of an Instacone implantable knee is shown here; the cone-shaped clusters stimulate the nuclear medicine and other engineering and medical disciplines also a department and ve years as a joint department with the Medical
growth of natural bone, which bonds tightly to the implant. Engineering Michigan PHOTO: providing support. School. It would have made Glenn Edmonson proud. U-M biomedical engineer Steve Goldstein and orthopedic surgeon Larry Matthews devised the idea on the back of a napkin while flying to a conference in 1983. BOW TIES FOR PEACE BICENTENNIAL NUCLEAR ENERGY &
RADIOLOGICAL SCIENCES 1950s
CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING 1880s 57
ATOMS CLIMATE & SPACE SCIENCES FRED PELHAM FOR PEACE & ENGINEERING 1990s BRIDGE BUILDER
bicentennial.engin.umich.edu In his December 8, 1953, Atoms for Peace speech at the United Nations, President Eisenhower – determined to solve “the fearful atomic dilemma” – An online multimedia story Frederick Blackburn Pelham was sought to turn nuclear power “from a curse into a bene t for humankind,” collection, the Michigan Engineering the rst African-American, in 1887, and the prevailing “culture of secrecy” into “a culture of openness.” Bicentennial Website Project brings to receive an engineering degree ough it took some e ort to plan – mostly due to this shift from past achievements, incidents, and from the University of Michigan. secrecy to openness – the University of Michigan responded in June 1954 by The Michigan Atmospheric Deposition other noteworthy events back As a civil engineer, Pelham forged holding the rst-ever international conference on nuclear energy. Hosted by Laboratory (MADLAB) in the Space to vivid life for the examination, a reputation for designing bridges Donald L. Katz, Chemical and Metallurgy Department chair and chemical Research Building hosted the original education and entertainment of the built to last – though this was less engineering professor, and sponsored by the Atomic Energy Commission, Masters Jeff PHOTO: telnet service. Michigna Engineering community. true of Pelham himself, who died an the hope was that the conference would help to advance the cause of nuclear untimely death in 1895, reportedly medicine and power – especially given that the Ford Nuclear Reactor was of acute pneumonia, at the tender being built on North Campus at that time. WUNDERGROUND Michigan Engineering has been
age of 30. Historical Library Bentley Scientists and engineers from Great Britain, Italy, France, Norway, adding at least one new piece of In his brief but proli c career, India, Canada, Spain, Belgium and elsewhere responded with cautious content to its Bicentennial Project Pelham – whose position with the PHOTO: optimism. More than 100 papers were delivered on topics as concrete as DEMOCRATIZING Website every week throughout Michigan Central Railroad was Frederick B. Pelham’s Michigan “ orium Metallurgy” and as abstract as “ e Impact of Nuclear Energy on Engineering graduation photo. 2017, so please visit often – and sign secured by a recommendation Religious ought.” But this was not just a technical conference. Journalists WEATHER up to receive the e-newsletter at from Michigan Professor Ezra Greene – was credited with designing participated, as did lawyers and physicians, and sometimes sparks ew. One bicentennial.engin.umich.edu. and building approximately 20 bridges known for their form and question underpinning the rest: how to balance secrecy and openness about strength. ey’ve held up for well over a century, spanning roads and atomic energy when it came to matters of national security. rivers along the Michigan Central Line between Detroit and Chicago is conference, ahead of its time, was both provocative and useful. e rst real-time internet weather service was built “I have all of the world’s weather data here, and providing safe passage for hundreds of thousands of trains – And perhaps no more so than for its role in exposing the possibility that the in Ann Arbor in 1991 – and it all started with an and a way to get it to everybody,” Masters including the Amtrak passenger cars that continue to pass through Ann products of atomic energy might well be less destructive than the fears, hatred adventurous graduate student and his more than remembers thinking at the time. “We’ve got to Arbor at least twice daily. and lack of understanding swirling around them. willing faculty advisor. connect these up. Nobody has done this yet.” Perhaps the most famous and unusual of Pelham’s creations is the After earning a BS (1982) and MS (1983) in Perry Samson – now an Arthur Thurnau “skew arch” bridge – a design used when a span is not perpendicular to the meteorology at Michigan Engineering, Je Masters Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and crossing – that passes over Dexter-Pinckney Road at the northwest edge embarked on an occasionally terrifying stint with Engineering at Michigan, and at that time of the town of Dexter, Michigan (though there’s an even more impressive the Hurricane Hunters at the National Oceanic Masters’ faculty advisor – gave Masters that Pelham-designed bridge, also within the Dexter city limits, whose much and Atmospheric Administration. By 1991, opportunity. Armed with a National Science higher arch spans Mill Creek). Masters returned to the safety of academia and Foundation grant – “one of the few times With a mere 11 feet, 10 inch clearance, the Dexter-Pinckney bridge was the University of Michigan to study air pollution where the NSF called and asked me to write a originally designed to accommodate pedestrians and horse-drawn buggies meteorology – and to pursue his curiosity about this proposal,” Samson says – Samson was able to passing under a one-lane opening. But with the advent of the automobile, new thing called “the internet.” hire computer science students Alan Steremberg and increased trac, local ocials were forced to post signage to warn Masters was in the right place at the right time. (BSE ’94) and Chris Schwerzler (BSE ’96), as motorists of its low and narrow dangers. Michigan’s North Campus was at that time the well as staff member Jeff Ferguson, and the Before constructing the arch, laborers installed a temporary wooden backbone hub of the nascent internet, and home to project took flight. frame under the rail bed and the soil they dug out was used to raise the many brilliant network engineers. And Michigan No wonder the first real-time internet banks along Mill Creek as protection for the bridge. Masons t the stones boasted a uniquely deep and rich history in the weather service was built in Ann Arbor – and by hand, and for many years Michigan Engineering students made eld study of weather, climate, atmosphere and space. progressed from UM-WEATHER to Weather trips to study the bridge’s elegant structure. e Space Research Building even had a Underground to its multi-million dollar sale
A Michigan Central plaque near the bridge contains several names, Historical Library Bentley PHOTO: satellite dish that received data directly from the to The Weather Channel in 2012. Go to ALWAYS INNOVATING. FOREVER VALIANT. R.R. White and C.M Sliepovich of Chemical Engineering and Jane Boswell, but not Pelham’s – either because only higher ocials were generally so East Engineering librarian, browsing a display of atomic literature National Weather Service. None of this escaped bicentennial.engin.umich.edu to learn more honored, it has been speculated, or because of Pelham’s race. at the Atoms for Peace conference. Masters’ attention. about what’s likely to come next.
#UmichEngin g THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER FALL 2017 g engin.umich.edu ALUMNI NOTES ALUMNI NOTES
58 59 TWIN SISTER SCIENTISTS WANDERING WAYS What’s better than one Michigan Engineer making critical innovations at the Food and Drug Administration? How about two? After landing in Indonesia in August of 2016, Scott Haber (BS LSA, MSE BME In the fall of 2007, after earning their bachelor’s degrees in ’16) spent a year wandering the world. His aim, funded by a $20,000 Bonderman mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland, identical Fellowship, was to experience and observe life in non-Westernized countries. twins Aftin and Astin Ross joined U-M’s biomedical engineering Journeying through Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, ailand, Cambodia, Nepal, master’s program. ey were eager to apply their longstanding India, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, Haber picked up new languages; connected with interest in science to improve the quality of people’s lives. people of all walks of life; rede ned his needs and expectations regarding sanitation, Flash forward 10 years later: ey are both using their PhDs
shelter, transportation and possessions; practiced yoga and meditation; spent time with Haber Courtesy Scott PHOTOS: to advance public health in the FDA’s Center for Devices and nature and gained a new understanding of his privilege as a white American and his Radiological Health. And although Aftin and Astin didn’t initially role in a global society. plan to come to the same center, their divergent paths following In particular, Haber was struck by the poverty – the lack of adequate housing, their Michigan doctorates in the past few years have brought them sanitation and access to clean water and healthcare. Equally, he was impressed by the back together once again. Between the two of them, they’ve had kindness and generosity of the people who gave him a ride or a place to wait out a a major in uence on the FDA’s research itself and the way the rainstorm, shared a meal or taught him something. organization handles its projects and communications. “I feel very moved, very called and, in a sense, very obligated to work with After graduating from U-M in 2012, Aftin performed research the communities I’ve been a part of to help foster change,” he said. at e Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany as a Whitaker Now, she manages two main projects at the FDA. She is Each year, the Bonderman Fellowship o ers four seniors in the College of Research Fellow for her post-doctorate, developing hydrogels for developing a human-centered approach to the process of researching Literature, Science and the Arts $20,000 to travel the world alone, exploring at least cell cultures and learning how to leverage those techniques for and reviewing by changing communications from written to more six countries in two regions over eight months. healthcare purposes. collaborative. She has also launched a program that serves as a She joined the FDA in 2013 as a Commissioner’s Fellow in one-stop shop for various groups within the FDA, so people can emergency operations involving medical device availability and understand which experts are already working in a given area and Laura Rudich PHOTO: delivery. Now as a Sta Fellow, she continues to provide engineering where they might start a new initiative themselves. NAME ALUM GETS Arbor, where he also studied poetry and history – and where he learned expertise for a preparedness program that makes sure patients have “What really attracted me to come here was that I enjoy my to write, he says, under the “gentle lash” of legendary NAME professor access to medical devices during emergencies like disease outbreaks research, but it took a long time to see the application of my work. PULITZER NOD Harry Benford. or radiological events. She is also working to establish a policy for Coming into a position like this, I can see the application and at experience paid enormous dividends in 2017, when Ferreiro’s issues in cybersecurity. visibility of my impact. To manage and improve the way people book, Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of “We want to make our decisions based on science — that’s work e ectively at the FDA, which in itself improves public health, France and Spain Who Saved It, was designated a Pulitzer Prize nalist a key part of what we do at the FDA. I can put a huge technical is really powerful.” in History. background into the work I do, and I’m then able to use that to During graduate school, Aftin and Astin had been involved
A U.S. Navy ship designer, Ferreiro also has a keen interest in A aron Spicer PHOTO: make broader, more immediate impacts. I have helped enhance or in many of the same extracurriculars, including the Society of history, having earned a PhD in History of Engineering, Science even saved people’s lives through my projects.” Minority Engineers and Scientists – Graduate Component and and Technology Studies from Imperial College London. During his Aftin’s work in Germany also gave her a cross-cultural the Movement of Underrepresented Sisters in Engineering and research, he made the surprising discovery that France and Spain had understanding of scienti c approaches to issues that can a ect the Sciences. formed a joint navy in the 1770s to ward o mutual enemy Britain. people everywhere. “ ese issues that are happening in the United eir graduate studies, coupled with their activities outside of “It’s the opposite story from what almost all of us learned,” Ferreiro States are not just happening here. ey also have global impact,” class, have given them a boost in collaborating, organizing, leading says. “When we declared independence, we did so without an army, she points out. and networking in their current roles. “Having worked with people without a navy, without even gunpowder…. e only way we were Astin joined the FDA a bit later; after graduating from U-M in with di erent personalities, and various nationalities and cultural going to win is if we enlisted the help of France and Spain.” early 2014, she spent close to two years editing papers for scienti c perspectives at Michigan has been extremely valuable,” Astin says. e discovery would later form the basis of Brothers at Arms – which journals at Cactus Communications. She also did research on drug It doesn’t hurt that Aftin and Astin have been surrounded by As a Long Island sixth grader in 1968, Larrie Ferreiro (BSE NAME ’80) asserts that America gained its independence not by itself but delivery methods at the National Institutes of Health for a year and Michigan alums at their organizations post-graduation — the thrilled to the Jacques Cousteau television specials. It wasn’t the marine life at the center of an international coalition it coaxed into existence. a half, before getting a call from the FDA asking her to join as a shared experience has been a jumping o point for countless new that fascinated him; young Larrie fell in love with the ships. And just like that, Ferreiro now teaches largely self-styled courses combining Sta Fellow. conversations and collaborations. he knew he wanted to design them. lessons in naval architecture and history at George Mason University, Ferreiro always thought he’d attend nearby Webb Institute, which specializes Georgetown University and Stevens Institute of Technology, Have a story you’d like us to consider for the next issue’s Alumni Notes? Let us know by sending an email to [email protected] in naval architecture and marine engineering, but later he yearned for a more where he asks his students to examine past problems to help with “Alumni Notes” in the subject line. well-rounded education. Grants and scholarships enabled him to come to Ann shape current projects. THE MICHIGAN ENGINEER NEWS CENTER BRAIN HACKS
61 WORLDWIDE GEEKOUT: The Rubik’s Cube takes the 1980s by storm
“ e [Rubik’s] Cube is much more than just a puzzle. It is an ingenious mechanical invention, a pastime, a learning tool, a source of metaphors, an inspiration,” gushed physicist and former U-M professor Douglas R. Hofstadter in the March, 1981 issue of Scienti c American.
Engineers and math lovers around the world were trans xed by the new puzzle. How did Hungarian inventor Ermo Rubik get the individual cubes (called “cubies”) to hold together, yet rotate in so many di erent ways?
e cube is held together a simple yet ingenious mechanism of axles and interlocking feet that enable the individual cubies to be arranged in an incredible number of combinations. e original ads for the cube billed it as having “over three billion combinations.” In fact, that’s not even close.
Can you calculate the actual number of solvable combinations using the information below?
PHOTO: Joseph Xu Joseph PHOTO: Morse Ralph ILLUSTRATION: e Rubik’s cube is made up of 26 individual cubies, including eight corner cubies, 12 edge cubies and six center cubies.
MICHIGAN ENGINEERS NEVER STOP MOVING. Each corner cubie can occupy any of the eight corner positions, and each edge cubie can occupy any of the 12 edge positions. e six center cubies are stationary and do MOVE WITH THEM. not move. Hint: Solvable combinations are those that can be achieved by rotating the cube’s 8 corner cubies 12 edge cubies 6 center cubies movable parts as intended. Other combinations are possible, but can only be achieved
by taking the cubies apart and reassembling them. When Michigan Engineers are making a di erence in the 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 Answer: world, we’re there. And you can be, too, with the new-and- improved Michigan Engineer News Center. Visit every day for news, video and more about the engineers who are making the world smarter, cleaner, safer, slicker and just plain cool. REINVENTING The Michigan THE CUBE PHOTO: Joseph Xu Joseph PHOTO: Engineer News Center A team of U-M mechanical engineering students recently built the world’s largest solvable, freestanding Rubik’s cube. Measuring over news.engin.umich.edu six feet tall, it’s too large to use the same system as the original cube. CASSIE BLUE Instead, the team designed a system of rollers and transfer bearings that enables it to move smoothly. It’s currently on display in the Get News Center stories Meet Cassie, the latest two-legged robot to arrive at Michigan. lobby of the G.G. Brown building. delivered to your favorite RSS reader: Built to handle falls, and with two extra motors in each leg, the news.engin.umich.edu/syndication/ new robot will help U-M roboticists take independent robotic walking to a whole new level. It’s in the News Center right now. IN MEMORIAM IN 63 MEMORIAM 1940s �41 Ward W. Thiel 4/9/17 �50 Charles R. Fuller 2/20/17 �53 James E. Cline 6/12/17 �61 Kendall E. Born 1/26/17 �74 Michael W. Hyer 2/15/17 �41 John P. Lord 5/11/17 �50 Gerald P. Jolette 3/10/17 �53 F. Leroy Higgins 6/14/17 �61 John Stencel 2/20/17 �76 Howard D. Franklin 2/1/17 �42 Charles J. Daniels 2/23/17 �50 Anton Longhini 3/28/17 �54 David W. Pletcher 1/31/17 �61 Dennis C. Zeiss 2/26/17 �77 Jack L. Sheneberger 2/22/17 �42 Alfred E. Falk 4/1/17 �50 Kek C. Tan 3/31/17 �54 Louis Galan 4/14/17 �61 Herbert T. Louv 4/14/17 �77 Kurt T. Knorpp 4/30/17 �42 P. Kenneth Pierpont 5/3/17 �50 Ronald S. Greenslade 4/7/17 �54 Lester K. Arquette 5/20/17 �62 George W. Ritsema 5/13/17 �79 Thomas R. Nesbitt 5/27/17 �44 E. Peter Schellens 5/9/17 �50 John M. Keir 4/9/17 �54 George A. Davidson 6/1/17 �62 Peter T. Kirschner 5/22/17 �45 Carl Eggebeen 1/26/17 �50 Billy D. Monk 5/8/17 �54 Philip A. Hogan 6/2/17 �63 Edward J. Fronczak 2/8/17 1980s �45 Robert L. Hess 5/19/17 �50 Harold L. Aurand 6/14/17 �55 John J. Buckley 4/1/17 �63 John M. Burke 3/9/17 �80 Bryan K. Pourcho 5/11/17 �46 John J. Fleischmann 5/31/17 �51 Robert P. Carr 1/21/17 �55 Wallace O. Enderle 5/16/17 �63 Harold W. Trenouth 5/23/17 �80 Gregory J. Schneider 5/17/17 �46 John S. Burtt 6/21/17 �51 Lawrence J. Lareau 2/10/17 �56 Edward R. Godfrey 1/27/17 �64 Carl A. Hansen 3/7/17 �80 John J. Moskwa 6/3/17 �47 Albert E. Maass 3/3/17 �51 Walter R. Tuuri 2/12/17 �56 William W. Gay 3/6/17 �64 Thomas E. Carlson 3/11/17 �81 Aogu A. Tsukamoto 3/11/17 �47 William O. Schoedinger 3/25/17 �51 William E. Hole 2/18/17 �56 Howard R. Voorhees 5/25/17 �64 Christopher Hayden 3/14/17 �82 Wayne P. Klug 1/25/17 �47 John G. German 4/23/17 �51 Arthur W. Gottschalk 3/8/17 �57 Arthur H. Boylan 1/25/17 �65 Fredric C. Dall 2/19/17 �85 Rickey O'Donald 2/17/17 �47 Stephen S. Squillace 4/24/17 �51 Wayne H. Fenton 3/22/17 �57 Richard A. Reinlein 3/20/17 �65 Louis J. Banciu 5/28/17 �47 Herbert E. Chinworth 5/3/17 �51 Dale R. Weill 3/25/17 �57 Bruce W. Brunson 4/10/17 �65 Joseph A. Sutorik 6/23/17 1990s �48 Douglas W. Anderson 1/28/17 �51 James R. Wey 4/23/17 �57 Fredrick W. Osborn 5/16/17 �66 John G. Moyer 5/15/17 �92 Thomas R. Plenefisch 6/5/17 �48 Donald P. Schiesswohl 1/31/17 �51 LeRoy F. Hinspeter 5/10/17 �57 Frederick J. Peters 5/23/17 �67 Fontain M. Johnson 2/4/17 �95 Bruce O. Nordquist 2/1/17 �48 John J. Lambe 2/12/17 �51 Lynn H. Barber 5/22/17 �57 Charles G. Richards 6/5/17 �67 Richard T. Eger 5/8/17 �95 David K. McConnell 3/15/17 �48 Richard A. Schmidtke 3/27/17 �51 Eugene C. Blankenship 5/28/17 �58 Bernard W. Hanna 3/15/17 �68 Jack L. Gray 3/29/17 �95 Christopher J. Norman 3/26/17 �48 Charles A. Gallup 4/23/17 �51 Charles R. King 6/8/17 �58 William K. Huggett 5/25/17 �68 Michael E. Kane 4/15/17 �48 Harold J. Jobse 4/29/17 �52 Kizhanatham Raman 1/31/17 �58 Nalinkumar H. Udani 5/27/17 �68 Joseph H. Stocks 5/6/17 2010s �48 Justin H. Smalley 7/1/17 �52 Charles H. Van Deusen 2/15/17 �58 William L. Wainwright 12/8/17 �69 Chaman N. Kashkari 3/23/17 �16 Allen S. Zhao 4/4/17 �49 Jack C. Stone 2/2/17 �52 William S. Hayes 2/17/17 �59 Harold G. Collins 3/11/17 �69 Stephen G. Kemp 6/11/17 �49 Warner C. Jennings 2/9/17 �52 Norman F. Goeckel 5/20/17 �59 William L. Kilmer 3/16/17 Faculty �49 Duane F. Taylor 4/7/17 �52 Stacy L. Elliott 5/31/17 �59 Daniel N. Chappelear 6/1/17 1970s Stanley J. Jacobs 1/26/17 �49 Thomas S. Heines 4/21/17 �52 Jesse D. Crell 6/6/17 �59 Andrew Zakala 6/27/17 �70 Randy L. Hammond 4/26/17 Robert L. Hess 5/19/17 �49 Leonard G. Allen 5/6/17 �52 James C. Streicher 6/20/17 �70 John J. Dellas 5/26/17 �49 Harold M. McCaskey 6/8/17 �53 John G. Albert 2/3/17 1960s �72 Eugene S. Horwitz 3/16/17 �49 Robert G. Caughey 6/14/17 �53 Richard F. Wilson 3/6/17 �60 William C. Gilbert 2/28/17 �72 Jonathan B. Schoch 4/17/17 �53 Louis J. Krzych 3/20/17 �60 Eugene A. Horsman 3/6/17 �72 Lawrence K. Hui 6/19/17 1950s �53 Franklin W. Vogenitz 3/21/17 �60 Richard R. Darr 3/24/17 �73 James A. Phillips 3/18/17 �50 Addison H. Kermath 2/1/17 �53 Albert A. Jadach 3/22/17 �60 David R. Jarrett 4/30/17 �73 Edward A. Strait 3/29/17 �50 Robert L. Du Mond 2/13/17 �53 Joseph G. Hipfel 4/9/17 �61 William R. Heitzig 1/21/17 �74 David G. Ryser 1/27/17 PARTING SHOT
MAKIN’ ROBOTS Cass Technical High School students Yousif Obeid (right) and Nyja Johnson assemble the frame of a robot for the Cass Tech team to use in the FIRST Robotics Competition at the Michigan Engineering Zone (MEZ) facility in Detroit. Made possible by Michigan Engineering, the MEZ helps Detroit high school students get access to the knowledge and tools they need to prepare for careers in the STEM fields.
PHOTO: Joseph Xu University of Michigan College of Engineering 1075 Beal Avenue 3214 SI North Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2112
DIVING INTO FLINT AND OTHER COMMUNITIES TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS OTHERS AREN’T . PAGE 26